11 Extracts from Poems
1. (Poem-1)
(A) Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim.
Questions:
(a) The poet is standing at the place where the road forked into :
(i) two, (ii) three, (iii) four, (iv) None of these.
(b) The poet did not choose the road on which most of the people had travelled.
(c) What is the theme of the poem ?
(True/Fals
Answers:
(a) (b) two
(b) True
(c) The theme of the poem is the various problems we face in life and the choices we
make
(B) I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence; T\vo roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less travelled by And that has made all the difference.
Questions :
(a) Why do you think the poet says this with a sigh” ?
(b) The poet would look back on his life after a very long time when he becomes an
old man. (True/False)
(c) Identify the word from the passage which means turned away from
Answers :
(a) This sigh could signify two things either it is a sigh of happiness because of the right choice or it could be a sigh of regret at having made the wrong choice.
(b) True.
(c) diverged.
2. (Poem-2)
(A) Wind, come softly.
Don’t break the shutters of the windows.
Don’t scatter the papers.
Don’t throw down the books on the shelf.
Questions :
(a) In the above lines, the poet makes a request to :
(i) God, (ii) wind, (iii) paper, (iv) books.
(b) Write any two activities of the wind.
(c) Trace a word from the extract which means thrown in different directions.”
Answers :
(a) (ii) wind.
(b) (i) Scattering of papers, (ii) Throwing down books from the shelf.
(c) scatter.
(B) Let’s joint the doors firmly.
Practise to firm the body.
Make the heart steadfast.
Do this, and the wind will be friends with us.
The wind blows out weak fires.
He makes strong fires roar and flourish.
His friendship is good.
We praise him every day.
Questions :
(a) What does the poet advice?
(b) The wind blows out strong fire. (True/False)
(C) Identify the word from the extract which means ‘fixed in direction’.
Answers :
(a) The poet advises to build strong homes and make our body strong.
(b) Falsa.
(c) steadfast.
3. (Poem-3)
(A) When the mid thadewelover
Over all the starty spheres
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears.
What a bliss to press the pillow
of a cottage-chamber bed
And lie listening to the patter
or the soft rain overhead!
Questions:
(a) “humid shadows’ in the above extract means
(i) shadows of men, (ii) dark spirits,
(iii) blue sky, (iv) dark clouds.
(b) What does the poet like to do when it rains?
(c) Which word in the extract means ‘depression’?
Answers :
(a) (iv) dark clouds.
(b) When it rains, the poet feels delighted to lie with his head pressed against the pillow of his cottage chamber bed and listen to the patter of the soft rain.
(c) melancholy
(B) Every tinkle on the shingles
Has an echo in the heart;
And a thousand dreamy fancies
Into busy being start,
And a thousand recollections
Weave their air-threads into woof,
As I listen to the patter
of the rain upon the roof.
Questions:
(a) What is the name of the poem from which the above extract is taken?
(i) The Road Not Taken, (ii) Wind, (iii) Rain on the Roof, (iv) No Men Are Foreign.
(b) Which word in the extract means ‘sound reflected’?
(c) What do you mean by the phrase “a thousand recollections weave their air-threads
into woof”?
Answers:
(a) (iii) Rain on the Roof.
(b) echo.
(c) This phrase means the numerous memories intermingle to form a beautiful picture that the poet recollects.
(C) Now in memory comes my mother,
As she used in years agone,
To regard the darling dreamers
Ere she left them till the dawn :
O! I feel her fond look on me
As I list to this refrain
Which is played upon the shingles
By the patter of the rain.
Questions:
(a) Identify the poet
Robert Frost, c) Coates Kinney (1) Phoebe Kary, (iv) Gieve Patel
(b) The single major memory that comes to the poet is that of his mother and her fond look
(c) Who are the ‘darling dreamers’ the poet refers to?
Answers :
(a) (ii) Coates Kinney.
(b) True.
(c) The darling dreamers’ are the poets siblings in his childhood, when they were lovingly put to sleep by their mother.
4. (Poem-5)
(A) He came to the door of a cottage,
In travelling round the earth,
Where a little woman was making cakes,
And baking them on the hearth;
And being faint with fasting,
For the day was almost done,
He asked her, from her store of cakes,
To give him a single one.
Questions :
(a) The above extract has been taken from the poem-
(i) A Legend of the Northland,
(ii) Wind,
(iii) No Men Are Foreign,
(iv) A Snake Trying.
(b) ‘He’ in the above extract refers to Saint Paul. (True/False)
(c) What did ‘he ask the old lady for?
Answers :
(a) (i) A Legend of the Northland.
(b) False.
(c) Being hungry, Saint Peter asked the old lady for a piece of cake which she was
baking.
(B) And he said, “You are far too selfish
To dwell in a human form,
To have both food and shelter,
And fire to keep you warm.
Now, you shall build as the birds do,
And shall get your scanty food
By boring, and boring, and boring,
All day in the hard, dry wood.”
Questions :
(a) Identify the author of the poem from which the above extract is taken-
i) Coates Kinney, (ii) Phoebe Cary, (iii) William Butler Yeats, (iv) Edward Lear.
(b) “You” in the above extract refers to the old lady. (True/False)
(c) How did Saint Peter punish the old selfish lady?
Answers :
(a) (ii) Phoebe Cary.
(b) True.
(c) Saint Peter punished the old selfish lady by cursing her and tuming her into a woodpecker.
5. (Poem-6)
(A) Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign
Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes
Like ours: the land our brothers walk upon
Is carth like this, in which we all shall lie.
They, too, aware of sun and air and water,
Are fed by peaceful harvests, by war’s long winter starv’d.
Their hands are ours, and in their lines we read
A labour not different from our own.
Questions :
(a) “Beneath all uniforms …………”. What uniforms do you think the poet is speaking about?
(b) ‘Peaceful harvests in the above extract symbolises
(i) fear and doubt,
(ii) good crop yield,
(iii) happiness and prosperity,
(iv) agony and agitation.
(c) Write the antonym of ‘winter
Answers :
(a) The poet speaks about the various dresses that people of various countries wear, but beneath them, the human body is same.
(b) (ii) happiness and prospertiy.
(c) Summer
(B) Let us remember, whenever we are told
To hate our brothers, it is ourselves
That we shall dispossess, betray, condemn.
Remember, we who take arms against each other
It is the human earth that we defile.
Our hells of fire and dust outrage the innocence
Of air that is everywhere our own.
Remember, no men are foreign, and no countries strange.
Questions :
(a) Identify the poem from which the above extract is taken-
(i) On Killing a Tree,
(ii) No Men Are Foreign,
(iii) Wind,
(iv) The Road Not Taken.
(b) Which word in the above extract is synonymous to make dirty or impure’?
(c) How does the poet prove that there are no foreign countries?
Answers :
(a) (ii) No Men Are Foreign.
(b) defile.
(c) The poet says that everyone shares the same sun, earth and air. They have the same
body structure. So there should be no biased attitude towards anyone.
6. (Poem-8)
No,
The root is to be pulled out-
Out of the anchoring earth;
It is to be roped, tied,
And pulled out-snapped out
Or pulled out entirely,
Out from the earth-cave
Questions:
(a) What one has to do to kill the tree?
(b) The earth anchors the tree and keeps it firmly standing (True/False)
(C) Identify the word from the extract, which is opposite in meaning to ‘partially
Answers :
(a) One has to pull out the tree from the root to kill it.
(b) True
(c) entirely
7. (Poem-9)
The snake trying
to escape the pursuing stick,
with sudden curvings of thin
long body. How beautiful
and graceful are his shapes!
He glides through the water away
from the stroke. O let him go
over the water
into the reeds to hide
without hurt
Questions :
(a) What is the snake trying to escape from?
(b) The poet finds the snake beautiful. The words which he uses to convey its beauty
are-
(i) curvings,
(ii) beautiful,
(iii) graceful,
(iv) Both (ii) and (iii).
(c) Identify the word in the above extract which means ‘water or marsh plants with thick stems’.
Answers :
(a) The snake is trying to escape from the person who is persuing it with a stick.
(b) (iv) Both (ii) and (iii).
(c) reeds
Small and green
he is harmless even to children.
Along the sand
he lay until observed
and chased away, and now
he vanishes in the ripples
among the green slim reeds.
Questions :
(a) The snake in the above extract is harmful to adults. (True False)
(b) Identify the word from the extract which is opposite in meaning to appears’.
(e) What impression do you form of the poet in this poem ?
Answers :
(a) False.
(b) vanishes.
(c) The poet loves nature and all its creations.
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