If you are in the last few days before your RPSC First Grade English exam, do not start re-reading full poems. Instead, use famous quotes from the poems. It gives you the most frequently asked quotations from the prescribed poetry list, with their speaker, context, and the angle examiners use to frame questions.
This cheat sheet covers all major prescribed poets. For deeper study, the full RPSC First Grade English literature guide on LitGram walks through each poem systematically. Each poem also has a dedicated Smart Reader lesson on LitGramStudy where you can revise and test yourself.
Bookmark this page. Read one section each time you have ten minutes.
Table of Contents
How to Use This Guide
Each entry below gives you:
- The Quote exactly as it appears in the text
- The Poet and Poem
- Context (who is speaking, when, and why)
- Exam Angle (what the question is actually testing)
Section 1: John Milton — Paradise Lost, Book I (Lines 1–124 Only)
Syllabus Note: The RPSC First Grade syllabus prescribes only Lines 1–124 of Book I. These cover the Invocation to the Muse (ll. 1–26) and Satan’s first speech to Beelzebub (ll. 84–124). Quotes from later parts of Book I — however famous — are outside scope.
“Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit / Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste / Brought Death into the World, and all our woe.”
- Speaker: Milton, the narrator — the poem’s famous opening lines.
- Context: Lines 1–3. The Invocation begins by announcing the subject of the epic: the Fall of Man.
- Exam Angle: This is the epic proposition. Questions test whether students know that Milton follows the classical epic convention of stating the subject in the opening lines (as Homer does in the Iliad and Odyssey). The word “mortal taste” is a common MCQ trap — it means “deadly taste,” not “human taste.”
Study the complete prescribed section: Milton — Paradise Lost Book I (Lines 1–124) on LitGramStudy | Full analysis on LitGram
“And justify the ways of God to men.”
- Speaker: Milton, the narrator.
- Context: Line 26 — the conclusion of the Invocation. Milton states that the entire epic has one purpose: to explain why God permitted the Fall.
- Exam Angle: This is the stated purpose of Paradise Lost. Every MCQ on “What does Milton aim to do in this poem?” points here. Note: the word is “justify” not “clarify” or “explain” — examiners test the exact word.
“If thou beest he; But O how fall’n! how chang’d / From him, who in the happy Realms of Light / Cloth’d with transcendent brightness didst outshine / Myriads though bright.”
- Speaker: Satan, addressing Beelzebub — lines 84–87, the opening of Satan’s first speech.
- Context: Satan sees his fellow fallen angel lying broken on the burning lake and recognises him with grief.
- Exam Angle: This is the pathos of the fallen state. Questions ask: does Milton make Satan sympathetic here? Yes — Satan weeps for what Beelzebub has lost. This is what makes Satan a tragic figure, not just a villain.
“What though the field be lost? / All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, / And study of revenge, immortal hate, / And courage never to submit or yield.”
- Speaker: Satan, to Beelzebub — lines 105–108.
- Context: After acknowledging their fallen state, Satan refuses to accept defeat. He rallies on the basis of will and defiance alone.
- Exam Angle: This is Satan’s heroic defiance — the quality that makes him the most active character in Book I. Questions often ask: what does Satan say is “not lost” even after their defeat? The answer is will, hatred, and courage — not territory or power.
Section 2: William Wordsworth — Tintern Abbey
“Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her.”
- Speaker: Wordsworth (the poem is addressed to his sister Dorothy).
- Context: He is reassuring Dorothy that Nature will protect her as it protected him through periods of doubt and loss.
- Exam Angle: This is the heart of Wordsworthian Romanticism. For Wordsworth, Nature is a moral teacher, not just a source of beauty.
Study the full poem: Wordsworth — Tintern Abbey on LitGramStudy | Tintern Abbey analysis on LitGram
“I have felt / A presence that disturbs me with the joy / Of elevated thoughts.”
- Speaker: Wordsworth.
- Context: He describes his mystical connection to Nature, a feeling that goes beyond ordinary sight and sound.
- Exam Angle: This is the Pantheism quote. Examiners ask whether Tintern Abbey is a religious poem. The answer is yes, but it is nature-worship rather than Christian faith.
Section 3: John Keats — Ode to a Nightingale
“Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! / No hungry generations tread thee down.”
- Speaker: Keats.
- Context: Keats contrasts the nightingale’s immortal song with the human condition, where one generation replaces another.
- Exam Angle: This is about the permanence of art vs. the transience of life. The bird itself is mortal, but the song outlives any single bird.
Study the full Ode: Keats — Ode to a Nightingale on LitGramStudy | All Keats Odes on LitGram
“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time / I have been half in love with easeful Death.”
- Speaker: Keats.
- Context: In the darkness under the trees, listening to the bird, the poet’s thoughts turn to death with a strange longing.
- Exam Angle: This is the Romantic death-wish. Keats’s tuberculosis shaped this poetry. Death here is “easeful,” even attractive, because it would end suffering.
Section 4: Robert Browning — Andrea Del Sarto
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?”
- Speaker: Andrea Del Sarto (the painter), speaking to his wife Lucrezia.
- Context: Andrea is explaining why perfect technical skill without ambition is ultimately empty. The irony is that he himself lacks that very striving.
- Exam Angle: The most quoted line from Browning in the RPSC First Grade syllabus. The question tests the irony: Andrea preaches about reaching beyond one’s grasp but never does so himself.
Study the poem: Browning — Andrea Del Sarto on LitGramStudy | All Browning Dramatic Monologues on LitGramStudy
Section 5: Matthew Arnold — Dover Beach
“Ah, love, let us be true / To one another!”
- Speaker: Arnold (addressed to a woman, often read as his new wife).
- Context: Standing at Dover Beach on the English Channel, Arnold hears the retreating tide as a metaphor for the retreat of religious faith in the modern world.
- Exam Angle: The Victorian crisis of faith quote. Arnold is saying: if God is gone, human love must be our only anchor.
Study the poem: Arnold — Dover Beach on LitGramStudy | Dover Beach analysis on LitGram
“And we are here as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight.”
- Speaker: Arnold.
- Context: The bleak conclusion of the poem. The modern world without faith is a battlefield at night where no one knows who the enemy is.
- Exam Angle: The word “darkling” links Arnold to Keats. Questions may ask you to trace this word across Romantic and Victorian poetry.
Section 6: W.B. Yeats — Sailing to Byzantium
“That is no country for old men.”
- Speaker: Yeats.
- Context: The famous opening line. Yeats describes Ireland (or the sensory physical world generally) as a place of youth and passion — no place for an aging poet.
- Exam Angle: Tests your understanding of the Yeatsian symbol of Byzantium. Ireland = the world of the body and time. Byzantium = the world of art and eternity.
Study the poem: Yeats — Sailing to Byzantium on LitGramStudy | The Second Coming and Sailing to Byzantium on LitGramStudy
“Once out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form from any natural thing.”
- Speaker: Yeats.
- Context: The poet wishes to be reincarnated not as a living creature but as a golden bird — a work of art — that sings forever.
- Exam Angle: The soul-vs.-body conflict. Art endures while biology decays.
Section 7: T.S. Eliot — The Hollow Men
“We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men.”
- Speaker: Eliot (the poem uses a collective “we,” implicating modern civilization).
- Context: The opening lines. Modern people are both “hollow” (empty, lacking spiritual depth) and “stuffed” (full of useless trivia).
- Exam Angle: The paradox of being both hollow AND stuffed. This comes from two sources: Guy Fawkes Night (the stuffed effigy) and Joseph Conrad’s Mistah Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.
Study the poem: Eliot — The Hollow Men on LitGramStudy | Full blog analysis on LitGram
“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”
- Speaker: Eliot.
- Context: The famous last lines. The world ends not in dramatic apocalypse but in quiet, pathetic failure.
- Exam Angle: One of the most asked lines in all RPSC English. The “bang” = dramatic heroic ending. The “whimper” = modern inability to even die with dignity.
Section 8: Indian Poetry — Quick Reference Table
| Poet | Poem | Key Line | Exam Angle | Study Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toru Dutt | Lakshman | “Thou art to me my mother, more than mother.” | Lakshman’s devotion and the feminist undercurrent (woman’s emotional power). | LitGramStudy |
| Nissim Ezekiel | Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S. | “I am not Ezekiel / The poet, but Mr. Nissim Ezekiel / Who is the poet…” | Dramatic monologue in Babu English, satirizing Indian middle-class social rituals. | LitGramStudy |
| Vikram Seth | The Tale of Melon City | “The law is clear. Someone must hang.” | Satire on bureaucracy and blind rule-following in governance. | LitGramStudy |
| Rabindranath Tagore | Where the mind is without fear | “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…” | Tagore’s prayer for India’s spiritual independence. From Gitanjali (1912). | LitGramStudy |
5 MCQs in RPSC Style
1. What is Milton’s stated purpose in the opening Invocation of Paradise Lost (lines 1–26)?
(A) To celebrate Satan’s heroism (B) To retell the story of the Creation (C) To justify the ways of God to men (D) To warn readers against ambition
2. The phrase “Mute Inglorious Milton” appears in which poem?
(A) Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth (B) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray (C) Dover Beach by Arnold (D) The Hollow Men by Eliot
3. “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp” is spoken by which character in Browning’s Andrea Del Sarto?
(A) Lucrezia, his wife (B) Andrea Del Sarto himself (C) The French King (D) A rival painter
4. In The Hollow Men, Eliot references which of these fictional characters by name?
(A) Hamlet (B) Captain Ahab (C) Mistah Kurtz (D) King Lear
5. In Yeats’s Sailing to Byzantium, Byzantium symbolizes:
(A) Death and physical decay (B) The world of art and permanence (C) The political state of Ireland (D) Christian heaven
Also see: Literary Terms Every RPSC Student Must Know | Major Literary Periods for RPSC Students