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Question
Our gates were strong, our walls were thick,
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Solution
- Reference: This line is from Edwin Muir’s poem “The Castle”.
- Context and Explanation: The poet says these words while flaunting the invincibility of their strong castle. They could watch the movement of enemies from the turret wall and shoot down the enemy at a distance of half a kilometer. They had a stockpile of arms. Their granary was full to sustain the people in the event of a siege. Only a bird could have got into the castle. So, the enemies did not seem to be a threat at all to the soldiers.
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| attention | treble | reluctantly |
| actors | maturity | reputation |
| serious | faculties | composing |
| enter | promises | dependent |
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Read the poem once again carefully and identify the figure of speech that has been used in each of the following lines from the poem.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
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And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
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Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
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His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
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Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
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That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
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| leisure | fool | life | money | repeat |
| tender-flower | rock | challenges | wisdom |
Lines 26-44
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