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“So was I once myself a swinger of birches." What mood of the poet is captured in the above lines taken from the poem, Birches? - English Literature

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प्रश्न

“So was I once myself a swinger of birches."

What mood of the poet is captured in the above lines taken from the poem, Birches?

विकल्प

  • Boredom

  • Nostalgia

  • Amusement

  • Loneliness

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उत्तर

Nostalgia

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  क्या इस प्रश्न या उत्तर में कोई त्रुटि है?
2023-2024 (March) Official

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Six humans trapped by happenstance
In black and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs;
The first man held his back.
For on the faces around the fire,
He noticed one was black.

Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow:

What do the logs denote?


The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn't die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.

Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.

What message does the poet want to convey ?


Unleashing the goats from the drumstick tree, Muni started out, driving them ahead and uttering weird cries from time to time in order to urge them on. Me passed through the village with his head bowed in thought. He did not want to look at anyone or be accosted. A couple of cronies lounging in the temple corridor hailed him, but he ignored their call. They had known him in the days of affluence when he lorded over a flock of fleecy sheep, not the miserable grawky goats that he had today.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

Describe Muni’s prosperous times.


Its a cruel thing to leave her so.”

“Then take her to the poorhouse: she’ll have to go there,” answered the blacksmith’s wife, springing away, and leaving Joe behind.

For a little while the man stood with a puzzled air; then he turned back, and went into the hovel again. Maggie with painful effort, had raised herself to an upright position and was sitting on the bed, straining her eyes upon the door out of which all had just departed, A vague terror had come into her thin white face.

“O, Mr. Thompson!” she cried out, catching her suspended breath, “don’t leave me here all alone!”           ,

Though rough in exterior, Joe Thompson, the wheelwright, had a heart, and it was very tender in some places. He liked children, and was pleased to have them come to his shop, where sleds and wagons were made or mended for the village lads without a draft on their hoarded sixpences.

“No, dear,” he answered, in a kind voice, going to the bed, and stooping down over the child, “You she’n’t be left here alone.” Then he wrapped her with the gentleness almost of a woman, in the clean bedclothes which some neighbor had brought; and, lifting her in his strong arms, bore her out into the air and across the field that lay between the hovel and his home.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

What idea do we get of the character of Mr Thompson?


From the day, perhaps a hundred years ago when he sun had hatched him in a sandbank, and he had broken his shell, and got his head out and looked around, ready to snap at anything, before he was even fully hatched-from that day, when he had at once made for the water, ready to fend for himself immediately, he had lived by his brainless craft and ferocity. Escaping the birds of prey and the great carnivorous fishes that eat baby crocodiles, he has prospered, catching all the food he needed, and storing it till putrid in holes in the bank. Tepid water to live in and plenty of rotted food grew him to his great length. Now nothing could pierce the inch-?thick armoured hide. Not even rifle bullets,

which would bounce off. Only the eyes and the soft underarms offered a place. He lived well in the river, sunning himself sometimes with other crocodiles-muggers, as well as the long-? snouted fish-?eating gharials-on warm rocks and sandbanks where the sun dried the clay on them quite white, and where they could plop off into the water in a moment if alarmed. The big crocodile fed mostly on fish, but also on deer and monkeys come to drink, perhaps a duck or two.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

What helped him grow to his present size?


Then there it lay in her wet palm, perfect, even pierced ready for use, with the sunset shuffled about inside it like gold—?dust. All her heart went up in flames of joy. After a bit she twisted it into the top of her skirt against her tummy so she would know if it burst through the poor cloth and fell. Then she picked up her fork and sickle and the heavy grass and set off home. Ai! Ai! What a day! Her barefeet smudged out the wriggle— ?mark of snakes in the dust; there was the thin singing of malaria mosquitoes among the trees now; and this track was much used at night by a morose old makna elephant—the Tuskless One; but Sibia was not thinking of any of them. The stars came out: she did not notice. On the way back she met her mother, out of breath, come to look for her, and scolding. “I did not see till I was home, that you were not there. I thought something must have happened to you.” And Sibia, bursting with her story, cried “Something did). I found a blue bead for my necklace, look!”

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

What all did Sibia not notice as she went home?


Then there it lay in her wet palm, perfect, even pierced ready for use, with the sunset shuffled about inside it like gold—?dust. All her heart went up in flames of joy. After a bit she twisted it into the top of her skirt against her tummy so she would know if it burst through the poor cloth and fell. Then she picked up her fork and sickle and the heavy grass and set off home. Ai! Ai! What a day! Her barefeet smudged out the wriggle— ?mark of snakes in the dust; there was the thin singing of malaria mosquitoes among the trees now; and this track was much used at night by a morose old makna elephant—the Tuskless One; but Sibia was not thinking of any of them. The stars came out: she did not notice. On the way back she met her mother, out of breath, come to look for her, and scolding. “I did not see till I was home, that you were not there. I thought something must have happened to you.” And Sibia, bursting with her story, cried “Something did). I found a blue bead for my necklace, look!”

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When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

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  2. How does Wordsworth describe the sight that met his eyes?
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  3. To what does the poet compare this sight?
    How is this comparison appropriate? [3]
  4. What does the poet mean when he says, 'Ten thousand saw I at a glance'?
    Find two other words in the given extract that create the impression of large numbers. [3]
  5. What immediate effect did this sight have on Wordsworth?
    How did it affect him in the long-term?
    What does this poem tell us about Wordsworth's attitude to Nature? [4]

Read the following extract from Robert Browning's poem, “The Patriot” and answer the question that follows.

Alack, it was I who leaped at he sun

To give it my loving friends to keep!

Nought man could do, have I left undone:

And you see my harvest, what I reap

This very day, now a year is run.

  1. What can you conclude of the Patriot's mood from the given lines?
    Quote the line from the given extract which tells us that the Patriot did his utmost to satisfy his people?   [3]
  2. The last line of the extract suggests that a year has gone by.
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  3. How did the situation change a year later? Give details of his present state.   [3]
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    ‘Where had the other townspeople gone?‘Why had they gone there?   [3]
  5. How is the speaker's faith in God revealed at the end of the poem?
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In the poem “Birches,” the poet observes that the birches are bent because ______.


Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

One day I found the pond occupied by several buffaloes. Their keeper, a boy a little older than me, was swimming about in the middle. Instead of climbing out on the bank, he would pull himself up on the back of one of his buffaloes, stretch his naked brown body out on the animal’s glistening hide, and start singing to himself.

When he saw me staring at him from across the pond, he smiled, showing gleaming white teeth in a dark face. He invited me to join him in a swim. I told him I couldn’t swim, and he offered to teach me.

His name was Ramu, and he promised to give me swimming lessons every afternoon, and so it was during the afternoons — especially summer afternoons when everyone was asleep — that we usually met. Before long I was able to swim across the pond to sit with Ramu astride a contented buffalo.

Sometimes I would slip into the water. Emerging in shades of green and khaki, I would sneak into the house through the bathroom and bathe under the tap before getting into my clothes.

One afternoon Ramu and I found a small tortoise in the mud, sitting over a hole in which it had laid several eggs. I presented the tortoise to Grandfather. He had a weakness for tortoises, and was pleased with this addition to his menagerie, giving it a large tub of water all to itself, with an island of rocks in the middle. If one of the dogs bothered it too much, it would draw its head and legs into its shell and defy all its attempts at rough play.

Ramu came from a family of bonded labourers and had received no schooling. But he was well-versed in folklore and knew a great deal about birds and animals.

“Many birds are sacred,” said Ramu, as we watched a blue jay swoop down from a peepul tree and carry off a grasshopper.

Both Ramu and Grandfather were of the opinion that we should be more gentle with birds and animals and should not kill so many of them.

“It is also important that we respect them, said Grandfather. We must acknowledge their rights. Birds and animals are finding it more difficult to survive, because we are trying to destroy both them and their forests.”

Ramu and I spent long summer afternoons at the pond. I still remember him with affection, though we never saw each other again after I left Dehra.

  1. For each word given below choose the correct meaning (as used in the passage) from the options provided: [2]
    1. hide (line 4)
      1. blanket
      2. fur
      3. undisclosed
      4. skin
    2. contented (line 12)
      1. cheerful
      2. lazy
      3. satisfied
      4. container
  2. Which word in the passage is the opposite of ‘easy’? [1]
    1. sneak
    2. difficult
    3. labourer
    4. survive
  3. Answer the following questions briefly in your own words.
    1. What did Ramu like to do once he had climbed on the back of a buffalo? [2]
    2. What offer did Ramu make to the narrator? [2]
    3. Why do you think the narrator would bathe before entering the house? [2]
    4. Who was the large tub of water for? [1]
    5. How would the tortoise protect itself from the dogs? [2]
  4. Despite the lack of schooling what did Ramu know? How, according to Ramu and Grandfather, should we treat birds and animals? Answer in not more than fifty words. [8]

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