THE INDIAN HIGH SCHOOL, DUBAI
Skill Based Worksheet -3
Max Marks:10
I. Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
The Cloud-Backed Heron Will Not Move:
He stares into the stream.
He stands unfaltering while the gulls
And oyster-catchers scream.
He does not hear, he cannot see
The great white horses of the sea,
But fixes eyes on stillness
Below their flying team.
How long will he remain, how long
Have the gray woods been green?
The sky and the reflected sky
Their glass he has not seen,
But silent as a speck of sand
Interpreting the sea and land,
His fall pulls down the fabric
Of all that windy scene.
Sailing with clouds and woods behind
Pausing in leisured flight,
He stepped, alighting on a stone,
Dropped from the stars of night.
He stood there unconcerned with day,
Deaf to the tumult of the bay,
Watching a stone in water,
A fish’s hidden light.
Sharp rocks drive back the breaking
waves Confusing sea with air.
Bundles of spray blown mountain-high
Have left the shingle bare.
A shipwrecked anchor wedged by rocks,
Loosed by the thundering equinox,
Divides the herded waters,
The stallion and his mare.
Yet no distraction breaks the watch
Of that time-killing bird.
He stands unmoving on the stone;
Since dawn he has not stirred.
Calamity about him cries,
But he has fixed his golden eyes
On water’s crooked tablet,
On light’s reflected word.
On the basis of your understanding of the above poem complete the statement given below
with the help option that follow. (1x5=5)
(a) Besides the heron the other birds in the vicinity are………
(i) More herons
(ii) Stream catchers
(iii)Oysters and gulls
(iv) Oyster-catchers and gulls
(b) The heron in flight…………….
(i) goes over clouds an woods
(ii) stones and rocks
(iii)across the starts at night
(iv) across the bay
(c) The sea is confused with the air when………..
(i) There is a wind blowing
(ii) The waves break on shore
(iii) When the shingles are exposed
(iv) When the bird flies in the water
(d) The bird on the stone has not stirred…………
(i) since daylight
(ii) since landing there
(iii) since dawn
(iv) since the waves broke
(e) Why is the water described as ‘crooked tablet’?
The water is described as a 'crooked tablet' because it reflects the world in a distorted and
fragmented way, just as a tablet might contain a distorted or incomplete message.
II. Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—
Its mother's face with Heaven's collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may,
And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,
Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.
And nearer to the river's trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white,
And starry river buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!—Oh! to whom?
On the basis of your understanding of the above poem complete the statement given below
with the help option that follow. (1x5=5)
(a) The poet had dreamt that………..
(i) Bare summer had given way to spring
(ii) Spring suddenly changed to winter
(iii)Summer and winter were together
(iv) Bare winter had changed to spring
(b) The poet has wandered in his dream ……….
(i) On to the bank of turf
(ii) Under the river
(iii)Under a copse round the bosom of the stream
(iv) Into a dream
(c) What the poet saw growing along the banks were……….
(i) A variety of flowers
(ii) A variety of cows
(iii)His fair eyes awakened
(iv) A dazzling sunshine
(d) The poet imagined that
(i) Kept the flowers as a gift
(ii) Made flowers into a nosegay
(iii)The flowers present themselves
(iv) The flowers were opposed to one another
(e) Why had the poet hastened back to the spot from where he had come?
The poet had hastened back to the spot from where he had come to present the nosegay to someone,
but the poem ends without revealing the identity of this person.