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Question
How does the poet bring out the immortality of the bird?
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Solution
While the poet is grieving on the unpleasant aspects of human life, he cherishes the nightingale's song and feels elated and finds peace in it. He praises the beauty of it. He calls the bird immortal for its humming is not to fade away as humans wither with age and death. He wishes to fly to the nightingale, wants to die and live with the bird. However, Keats soon realises that what he imagines is impossible. Keats is bewitched by nightingale's singing and he sings in praise of this bird whose ageless humming has been heard by the emperors and clowns and even Ruth and by all since times immemorial and will be there to be heard by posterity. Spellbound, he further embellishes and adds the beauty to the bird's song by his personification. Enchanted by the evergreen beauty of the sound of this bird, Keats delays the inevitability of death and lives the immortality of the bird, though not for long.
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I rain into a stranger as he passed by
“Oh, excuse me please” was my reply.
He said, “please excuse me too; wasn't even watching for you.”
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on out way and we said good-bye.
But at home a different story is told.
How we treat out loved ones, young and old.
Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My daughter stood beside me very still.
When I turned, I nearly knoked her down.
“Move out of the way,” I said with a frown.
She walked away, her little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.
While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,
“While Dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use,
But children you love, you seem to abuse.”
A1. Order-
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(i) The poet and the stranger went on their way saying good-bye.
(ii) Seeking excuse politely from the stranger, she went her way.
(iii) The poet ran into a stranger on the road.
(iv) The poet yelled at her daughter.
A2. Poetic device:
Make a list of rhyming pairs from the second stanza and note down the rhyme scheme of the same stanza.
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While introducing great personalities, — a
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| 2. silent | ||
| 3. unfading | ||
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Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
The Stationmaster’s Supreme Sacrifice by Sanchari Pal (Adapted)
- Thirty-three years ago, on the night of December 2, 1984, Bhopal was hit by a catastrophe that had no parallel in the world’s industrial history. An accident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal had released almost 30 tons of a highly toxic gas called methyl isocyanate, turning the city into a vast gas chamber. The result was a nightmare; more than 600,000 people were exposed to the deadly gas cloud that left thousands dead and many more breathless, blind and in agonizing pain. Few people know that during the Bhopal gas tragedy a heroic stationmaster risked his own life to save others.
- On the evening of December 3, 1984, Ghulam Dastagir was settling down in his office to complete some pending paperwork. This work kept him in his office till 1am in the night, when he emerged to check the arrival of the Gorakhpur Mumbai Express. As he stepped on to the platform, the deputy stationmaster felt his eyes burn and a queer itching sensation in his throat. He did not know that poisonous fumes leaking from Union Carbide’s pesticide factory were stealthily enveloping the railway station.
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- Why was the accident at Union Carbide unparalleled in the world’s industrial history?
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- What was the cause of Dastagir’s death?
- Find words from the passage which mean the opposite of the following.
- safeguard (para 1)
- common or familiar (para 2)
- prompt (para 4)
- cause (para 6)
Being a bachelor, the stranger had no patience with children.
