Question

. Read the poem given below: 12 Marks
To a Skylark
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 5

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 10

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 20

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 25

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 30

Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. 35


1.1 On the basis of your understanding of the poem above, answer the following questions by choosing the most appropriate option. 1x6=6

a. The poet thinks that the skylark’s song comes from
i. ferns and bushes.
ii. hails.
iii. heaven.
iv. tree top.

b. ‘Unpremeditated art’ (line 5) means
i. unrehearsed song.
ii. incomprehensible song.
iii. inexplicable song.
iv. unintelligible song.

c. The ‘blue deep’ in line 9 means
i. the deep sea.
ii. the deep ocean.
iii. blue precious stone.
iv. the sky.

d. The figure of speech in “The pale purple even” is
i. onomatopoeia.
ii. assonance.
iii. oxymoron.
iv. alliteration.

e. In lines 18 – 20 the comparison of the bird unseen to the star is apt because
i. the star is seen at night.
ii. the evening is purple.
iii. the star is unseen in day-light.
iv. the song gives shrill delight.

f. Which of the following is not a synonym of ‘intense’ (line 23)?
i. strong
ii. powerful
iii. deep
iv. sad


1.2 Answer the following questions as briefly as possible:
1x6=6
a. What actions of the bird are mentioned in stanza 3 (lines 11 - 15)?
b. How do we realize that the unseen bird is there in the pale purple evening?
c. Why does the intense lamp of the silver sphere narrow?
d. What does the skylark offer which is better than drops from rainbow clouds?
e. What is the poetic device used in the last stanza?
f. Which word in the last stanza means the same as ‘shaped’ or ‘fashioned’?

Answer 1

1.1
a. i
b.i
c.iv
d.iii