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Question
Who is the speaker in the poem Whatif? What is she worried about? Can you suggest ways to get rid of silly fears?
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Solution
The speaker in the poem is a girl. She is haunted by fears and worries. These are related to her safety. There is no sequence or substance in her fears. Such baseless and absurd fears trouble us when we go to bed. These are like frightening dreams, only a cowardly or weak minded person entertains such fears. One can get rid of them if one tells oneself firmly to shed all worries.
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RELATED QUESTIONS
Now rewrite the pair of sentences given below as one sentence.
Grandfather told me about the old days. All books were printed on paper then.
The poem is about a brook. A dictionary would define a brook, as a stream or a
small river. Read the poem silently first. After the first reading, the teacher will
make you listen to a recording of the poem. What do you think the poem is all
about?
I come from haunts of coot and hern;
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
10 To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
15 I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
20 With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
25 I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
30 Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
35 For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
40 That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
45 I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
50 To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
About the Poet
Lord Tennyson (1809-92) was born in Lincolnshire. Poet Laureate for over 40 years, Tennyson is representative of the Victorian age. His skilled craftsmanship and noble ideals retained a large audience for poetry in an age when the novel was engrossing more and more readers. Tennyson's real contribution lies in his shorter poems like The Lady of Shallot, The Princess, Ulysses, The Palace of Art etc. His fame rests on his perfect control of sound, the synthesis of sound and meaning, and the union of visual and musical.
After reading the poem answer the following questions.
The poet has used a number of words which indicate 'movement' and 'sound'. Working
with your partner make a list of these words from the poem and complete the web chart.
(c.) A word or a combination of words, whose sound seems to resemble the sound it
denotes (for example: "hiss", "buzz", "etc.) is called onomatopoeia. From the words that
you have filled in the blurbs above point out these words.
On the basis of your understanding of the poem, answer the following question
by ticking the correct choice.
In the poem, a traveller comes to a fork in the road and needs to decide which way to go
to continue his journey. Figuratively the choice of the road denotes
______________________
Read the lines given in the boxes on the next page. They are in random order.
Now listen to the recording of the poem carefully. As you listen, number the
stanzas given in the boxes sequentially.
I am beautiful pearls, plucked from the
Crown of Ishtar by the daughter of Dawn
To embellish the gardens
I emerge from the heart of the Sea and
Soar with the breeze. When I see a field in
Need, I descend and embrace the flowers and
The trees in a million little ways
The voice of thunder declares my arrival :
The rainbow announces my departure.
I am like earthly life, which begins at
The feet of the mad elements and ends
Under the upraised wings of death
I am dotted silver threads dropped from heaven
By the gods. Nature then takes me to adorn
Her fields and valleys.
I touch gently at the windows with my
Soft fingers and my announcement is a
Welcome song. All can hear but only
The sensitive can understand
The field and the cloud are lovers
And between them I am a messenger of mercy.
I quench the thirst of the one,
I cure the ailment of the other.
I am the sigh of the sea, the laughter of the field;
The tears of heaven.
When I cry the hills laugh;
When I humble myself the flowers rejoice;
When I bow, all things are elated
So, with love-
Sighs from the deep sea of affection; Laughter
from the colourful field of the spirit; Tears from
the endless heaven of memories.
Read the information given below.
Do you know that tigers are the biggest cats in the world? There are five different kinds or sub-species of tigers alive in the world today. Tigers are called Panthera tigris in Latin, Bagh in Hindi & Bengali, Kaduva in Malayalam & Pedda Puli in Telugu.
Total Population of Tigers in the world
| SUB SPECIES | COUNTRIES | ESTIMATED Minimum |
POPULATION Maximum |
| P.t. altaica | China | 12 | 20 |
| Amur Siberian, | N. Korea | 10 | 10 |
| Manchurian | Russia | 415 | 476 |
| N .E. China Tiger | |||
| TOTAL | 437 | 506 | |
| Royal BengalTiger | Bangladesh | 300 | 460 |
| P.t. tigris | Bhutan | 80 | 460 |
| China | 30 | 35 | |
| India | 2500 | 3800 | |
| Nepal | 150 | 250 | |
| TOTAL | 3060 | 5005 |
| P.t. corbetti | Cambodia | 100 | 200 |
| (Inda-Chinese Tiger) | China | 30 | 40 |
| Laos | |||
| Malaysia | 600 | 650 | |
| Myanmar | |||
| Thailand | 250 | 600 | |
| Vietnam | 200 | 300 | |
| TOTAL | 1180 | 1790 | |
| P.t. sumatrae | Sumatra | 400 | 500 |
| (Sumatran Tiger) | |||
| TOTAL | 400 | 500 | |
| P. t. amoyensis | China | 20 | 30 |
| (South China Tiger) | |||
| TOTAL | 20 | 30 | |
| GRAND TOTAL | 5097 | 7831 |
Extinct Species
P.t. virgata (Caspian Tiger)
P. t. sondaica (Javan Tiger )
P. t. balica (Bali Tiger)
Tiger in Trouble
Since some tiger parts are used in traditional medicine, the tiger is in danger. Apart from its head being used as a trophy to decorate walls, tigers are also hunted for the following.
Head : As a trophy on the wall.
Brain: To cure laziness and pimples.
Teeth: For rabies, asthma and sores.
Blood: For strengthening the constitution and will power.
Fat: For vomiting, dog bites, bleeding haemorrhoids and scalp ailments in children.
Skin: To treat mental illness and to make fur coats.
Whiskers: For toothache.
What does he plant who plants a tree? a
He plants a friend of sun and sky;b
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high;
He plants a home to heaven anigh;
For song and mother-croon of bird
In hushed and happy twilight heard____
The treble of heaven's harmony_____
These things he plants who plants a tree.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow:
“Jane,” said the wheelwright, with an impressiveness of tone that greatly subdued his wife, “I read in the Bible sometimes, and find much said about little children. How the Savior rebuked the disciples who would not receive them; how he took them up in his arms, and blessed them; and how he said that ‘whosoever gave them even a cup of cold water should not go unrewarded.’ Now, it is a small thing for us to keep this poor motherless little one for a single night; to be kind to her for a single night; to make her life comfortable for a single night.”
The voice of the strong, rough man shook, and he turned his head away, so that the moisture in his eyes might not be seen. Mrs. Thompson did not answer, but a soft feeling crept into her heart.
“Look at her kindly, Jane; speak to her kindly,” said Joe. “Think of her dead mother, and the loneliness, the pain, the sorrow that must be on all her coming life.” The softness of his heart gave unwonted eloquence to his lips.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What did Joe say to his wife?
Notice how in a comic book, there are no speech marks when characters talk. Instead what they say is put in a speech ‘bubble’. However, if we wish to repeat or ‘report’ what they say, we must put it into reported speech.
Change the following sentences in the story to reported speech. The first one has been done for you.
(i) How much did you pay for that hilsa?
What do you know about the queen ant?
Author’s friend had taken out the parts of the bicycle easily, but he really had tough time fixing them Explain this with suitable example.
Why was it necessary to train Kari to he good?
Why was the crocodile unwilling to invite his friend home?
Comment on the tone of the speaker when he says, “Trees are for no shade in winters.”
Complete the following sentence.
The banyan tree served the boy as a ________.
Who says this to whom and why?
“Victory to the panchayat. This is justice.”
Are the rebels rain lovers?
Write ‘True’ or ‘False’ against each of the following sentences.
Gopal was a madman. ________
Play detectives with each other. Find a person in your class (or some other acquaintance) to speak to. Find out the answers to the questions given below. Be careful to ask your questions in a polite and inoffensive way. Do not force the person to answer you. Then allow the person to ask you the same questions.
- Name?
- What newspapers or magazines does the person read?
- How long has the person lived at the current address?
- What does she/he do during the day, i.e. the daily routine?
- What do neighbours and friends say about the person?
- Who are his/her visitors and what are his/her eating habits? (You can ask a few others about this.)
- What do you think about the person?
Read the following extract from Jesse Owens's short story, ‘My Greatest Olympic Prize’ and answer the question that follows:
| I wasn't too worried about all this. I'd trained, sweated and disciplined myself for six years with the Games in mind. While I was going over on the boat, all I could think about was taking home one or two of those gold medals. I had my eye especially on the running broad jump. |
- What does Owens mean by 'all this'? What games does he refer to? [3]
- What made Owens confident of winning a gold medal or two? [3]
-
What was the ‘surprise’ that Hitler had kept hidden from the world?
How did Owens feel when he came face to face with the ‘surprise’? [3] - Describe Owens’ performance in the broad jump trials.
What doubts filled his mind at this time? [3] - What makes Luz Long’s behaviour at the ‘Games’ truly remarkable in the context of the times?
Identify a theme that is common to the short story ‘My Greatest Olympic Prize and the poem ‘Nine Gold Medals’. [4]
