Gujarat Board GSEB Class 10 English Textbook Solutions Reading Comprehension Unseen Poems Questions and Answers, Notes Pdf.
GSEB Class 10 English Reading Comprehension Unseen Poems
Read the following poem carefully and answer the questions given below them:
Question 1.
Oh, sweet content, that turns the labourer’s sweat
To tears of joy, and shines the roughest face;
How often have I sought you high and low
And found you still in some lone quiet place;
Here, in my room, when full of happy dreams,
With no life heard beyond that merry sound Of moths that on my lighted ceiling kiss Their shadows as they dance and dance around;
Or in a garden, on a summer’s night,
When I have seen the dark and solemn air
Blink with the blind bats’ wings, and heaven’s bright face
Twitch with the stars that shine in thousands there. -William Henry Davies
Questions:
(1) What does the poet mean by ‘no life heard’?
(2) Why, do you think, has the poet mentioned the labourer?
(3) What is ‘Sweet Content’, according to the poet?
(4) What message does the poet give us in this poem?
Answers:
(1) The poet means that no sound from living creatures is heard.
(2) The poet has mentioned the labourer because a labourer’s life is difficult and it is only contentment with his lot that can bring him happiness.
(3) The hard labour that the labourer does is the sweet content that makes him sweat.
(4) The poet gives us the message to seek contentment in lonely quiet places and amidst
natural sights.
Question 2.
A pilgrim, going a lone highway
Came at evening, cold and grey
To a chasm, deep and vast and wide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim.
The chasm held no fear for him.
But he paused when he reached the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
Old man” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“Why waste your time in building here? ‘
Your journey ends with the close of day You never again will pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm deep and wide Why build ye here at eventide ?”
The pilgrim raised his old gray head “My friend in the path I’ve come,” he said “There followeth after me today A fair-haired youth who must pass this way.
The chasm which held no fears for me
To the fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He too must cross in the twilight dim.
My friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
Questions:
(1) What do the three persons mentioned in the poem stand for?
(2) What answer does the old pilgrim give to the fellow pilgrim’s question?
(3) What did the old man do the other side of the chasm? Why?
(4) What is the significance of the poem?
Answers:
(1) The old pilgrim stands for the selfless man, the fellow pilgrim for the selfish man and the fair-haired youth for the callow, inexperienced youth respectively.
(2) The old pilgrim says that the fair-haired, inexperienced youth who was following him may find the chasm fearful. It may be a pitfall for him. The old man was building a bridge to help and protect him.
(3) The old man built a bridge to span the tide.
(4) The poet wishes to give the message that like the old pilgrim one must serve humanity selflessly. This is where true nobility and beauty of character lies. The experienced must help and protect the inexperienced ones.
Question 3.
The poetry of earth is never dead,
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead,
That is the grasshopper’s; he takes the lead In summer luxury;
he has never done With his delights for when tired of with fun,
He rests at last beneath some pleasant, weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never;
On a lone winter evening when the frost.
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half-lost,
The Grasshoppers among some grassy hills. -John Keats
Questions:
(1) In what way are the grasshopper and the cricket similar?
(2) What is meant by ‘new-mown mead’?
(3) What is the grasshopper’s summer luxury?
(4) When is the cricket’s song heard?
Answers:
(1) The grasshopper and the cricket sing despite the harshness of the seasons.
(2) New-mown mead’ means the meadow in which the grass has just been mown.
(3) The grasshopper’s summer luxury is singing and hopping about from hedge to hedge despite the intense summer heat.
(4) The cricket’s song is heard on a because of frost.
Question 4.
I’m leaving now to slay the foe
Fight the battles, high and low
I’m leaving, mother, hear me go!
Please wish me luck today.
I’ve grown my wings, I want to fly Seize my victories where they lie,
I’m going Mom, but please don’t cry just let me find my way
Questions:
(1) Why does the young man request his mother to wish him luck?
(2) What is the ambition of the young man?
(3) What promise does the young man give to his mother?
(4) Which lines in the poem read that the young man is ready to face struggles of life?
Answers:
1. The young man requests his mother to wish him good luck because he was going to the battlefield to fight against the enemies.
2. The young man wanted to fly and seize victories wherever they lie. He wanted to find his own way and carve his niche.
3. The young man promises his mother that though there are dangers and fears, he would go ahead smilingly drying his tears and get what he wants.
4. The following lines read that the young man is ready to face struggles of life:
‘I want to see and touch and hear Though there are dangers, there are fears.’
Question 5.
The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
The little mouse that leaves its hole at eve Nimble’s with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past, and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
And drops again when no more noise it hears,
Thus nature’s human link and endless thrall
Proud man still seems the enemy of all. -John Clare
Questions:
(1) Which living creatures (other than man) has the poet mentioned in this poem?
(2) Explain the Figure of Speech in the fifth line.
(3) What does the poet mean when he says that the grasshopper wears ‘the short night weary’?
(4) What happens with the poet’s ‘rustling steps’?
Answers:
1. The poet has mentioned the frog, the mouse, the cricket, the grasshopper, the hare and the yellowhammer (a small bird) in this poem.
2. Personification. The cricket is given the human quality of singing.
3. The poet means that the grasshopper sings all night so that one who has been awake will get weary of its song.
4. With the ‘rustling steps’ of the poet, the little mouse is scared and runs away. It is deprived of its joy.
Question 6.
The little creature
with a hundred feet
was on its journey
to where
only it knew.
My civilized foot
dressed in polished leather
came down upon it
ever so gently
there was only a soft sound
signifying
the end
of a creature of God –
my maker.
I looked to see
if my sole was soiled
and walked away.
Questions:
(1) Which little creature does the poet talk of?
(2) Why does the poet call his foot civilized?
(3) What happened when the poet’s foot came down upon the little creature?
(4) ‘The poet walked away.’ What does this mean?
Answers:
1. The poet talks of a centipede.
2. By calling his foot ‘civilized’ the poet conveys irony that man is literate and sophisticated or civilized in his manners, yet he does not have sense of compassion or pity. He struts proudly in polished shoes but cares the least for small beings like centipedes.
3. When the poet’s foot came down upon the little cæature, it was crushed to death.
4. The poet walked away’ – These words show complete negligence of the poet who has no feeling of repentance for the centipede crushed under his foot.
Question 7.
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful,
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it colony
I think it is part of my heart. But it -flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candle and. the moon.
I see her back, reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl and in me an old woman.
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. -The Mirror – by Sylvia Plath
Questions:
(1) ‘I have no preconceptions.’ Who says this?
(2) Why does the mirror say, ‘I am not cruel, only truthful?
(3) Why are the candle and moon called ‘liars’?
(4) In this poem which word means ‘prejudices’?
Answers:
1. ‘I have no preconceptions.’ The mirror says this.
2. The mirror says, ‘I am not cruel, only truthful, because it reflects what it sees, not bearing any dislike or grudges and never betrays. It is always truthful.
3. Both the candle and the moon are called liars because by throwing light only on the front part, i.e., face, they show only the brighter side and never the thing or person in their full form.
4. In this poem, the word ‘preconception’ means ‘prejudice’.