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Summary of the poem
= The ball poem..
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Answers
“The Ball Poem” is a very subtle and beautiful poem about a little boy’s growing up. The poet sees this little boy one day when he has just lost his ball. The loss of his ball is teaching him that in life, we often lose things and they cannot be easily replaced. Such lessons are a part of growing up, and everyone has to learn them at some point in time or the other. However, it is painful for the poet to watch the boy in his sad state. He is sure that the ball, as well as the person who whistles by the boy, feels the same way as he does.
The setting of The Ball Poem:
This poem is set near the harbour, as the poet says that the little boy’s ball rolled away from him and into the water. Both the poet and the boy are near the harbor. The poet can, in fact, see the boy and even his facial expressions very clearly.
Summary of The Ball Poem:
The poem consists of 25 lines in total. These lines are not divided into stanzas. Here they are divided into meaningful segments for the purposes of this summary in order to make the poem easier to understand and follow.
Lines 1 – 4:
What is the boy now, who has lost his ball.
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!
In these lines, the poet asks his readers a question. He has seen a young boy’s ball rolling away from him, bouncing happily on its way, and finally falling into the water. He asks his readers what the boy should do now that his ball is gone.
Lines 5 – 10:
No use to say ‘O there are other balls’:
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
In these lines, the poet thinks for a moment that he ought to console the boy who has lost his ball by telling him that there will be other balls just like that one that he will come across sooner or later. However, he understands that such false consolation will not make the boy feel any better. A feeling of grief has come over the boy. He stands very straight for some time and then starts shivering all over. He watches the ball go into the harbour and down in the water, and he feels that his childhood has also taken the same route away from him. At such a time, the poet feels that it would be wrong to go up to the boy and intrude on his solitude. Giving him a dime to purchase another ball will not hold any value for him.
Lines 11 – 14:
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
In these lines, the poet tells us that the little boy is undergoing a transformation. He is just now coming to the realisation that the ball was his responsibility, as many things will be after this. In this world, everything you own is our responsibility and you must keep those things safe. However, nothing you own will be yours forever. Other people will take away your ball, or it will get lost in some way or the other. No one will buy another ball for you. Money is only something you can show off, but ultimately it cannot buy you inner peace. Here the ‘ball’ is a symbol for all of one’s possessions, and the poet is saying that we will certainly lose them one day and that they cannot be easily replaced.
Lines 15 – 20:
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street,
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight.
In these lines, the poet says that the boy’s eyes have become filled with an awful sadness, but that behind all the grief, he is learning an important lesson. He is learning about the loss of things one considers precious. He is learning a lesson that every man must learn, and one that man must learn again and again. He is learning how to accept the loss and then move on. Suddenly, the boy is brought back to his senses after hearing the sound of a whistle nearby. He can no longer see the ball at all.
Lines 21 – 25: Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.
In these lines, the poet says that he is the ball that is now about to reach the very bottom of the harbour. He is moving away from the little boy, and that pains him. Or he may be the one who blew the whistle as well. The truth is that he is everywhere but within the little boy. He has already grown up and therefore, he has already learned about loss. He is always only watching others learn the same lesson as he has.
Answer:
when the boy stated he remember his