For those that are studying Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 course, here is a list of all poems from their syllabus analyzed for the years 2025, 2026, and 2027. If you are struggling to understand any of the terms used in our analysis, explore our literary term glossary.
Please feel free to skip to the poem most relevant to you and if you want a poem to be analyzed that you cannot find on the site, too, feel free to contact us.
We also welcome comments on all of our poetry analyses and articles. If you have any questions about any of the poems at all, including the aforementioned below, please feel free to comment, and you will be responded to by a poetry expert.
Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 Poems (2025-27)
Set texts for examination in 2025
A selection from Songs of Ourselves (Cambridge International Examinations Anthology of Poetry in English) Volume 2. The following 14 poems from Part 2: Birds, Beasts and the Weather:
- Judith Wright – Australia 1970
- Thomas Carew – The Spring
- Philip Larkin – Coming
- Thomas Hardy – The Darkling Thrush
- Ruth Pitter – Stormcock in Elder
- Stevie Smith – Parrot
- Vivian Smith – At the Parrot House, Taronga Park
- Alice Oswald – Eel Tail
- Peter Reading – Cetacean
- David Constantine – Watching for Dolphins
- William Barnes – The Storm-Wind
- Kofi Awoonor – The Sea Eats the Land at Home
- Allen Curnow – You Will Know When You Get There
- Robinson Jeffers – The Stars Go Over the Lonely Ocean
Set texts for examination in 2026
A selection from Songs of Ourselves (Cambridge International Examinations Anthology of Poetry in English). The following 14 poems from Part 5: Poems from the 19th and 20th
Centuries (III):
- Frances Cornford – Childhood
- Emily Dickinson – Because I Could Not Stop for Death
- Elizabeth Bishop – One Art
- Alfred Lord Tennyson – Song: Tears, Idle Tears
- Stephen Spender – My Parents
- Fleur Adcock – For Heidi with Blue Hair
- Grace Nichols – Praise Song for my Mother
- Seamus Heaney – Follower
- Charlotte Mew – The Trees are Down
- Philip Larkin – The Trees
- Ruth Pitter – Time’s Fool (still analyzing)
- Charlotte Mew – A Quoi Bon Dire
- Robert Browning – Meeting at Night
- A E Housman – Because I Liked You Better
Set texts for examination in 2027
A selection from Songs of Ourselves (Cambridge International Examinations Anthology of Poetry in English). The following 14 poems from Part 5: Poems from the 19th and 20th
Centuries (III):
- Frances Cornford – Childhood (still analyzing)
- Emily Dickinson – Because I Could Not Stop for Death
- Elizabeth Bishop – One Art
- Alfred Lord Tennyson – Song: Tears, Idle Tears
- Stephen Spender – My Parents
- Fleur Adcock – For Heidi with Blue Hair
- Grace Nichols – Praise Song for my Mother
- Seamus Heaney – Follower
- Charlotte Mew – The Trees are Down
- Philip Larkin – The Trees
- Ruth Pitter – Time’s Fool (still analyzing)
- Charlotte Mew – A Quoi Bon Dire
- Robert Browning – Meeting at Night
- A E Housman – Because I Liked You Better
