10. Unseen Poem Comprehension for Class 8

COUSINS

Read the following poem carefully:

 The cardboard shows me how it was
When the two girls cousins went paddling,
Each one holding one of my mother’s hands,
And she the big girl – some twelve years or so
All three stood still to smile through their hair
At the uncle with the camera.A sweet face,
My mother ’s, that was before I was born.
And the sea, which appears to have changed less,
Washed their terribly transient feet.
Some twenty-thirty, years later
She’d laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty
And Dolly,” she’d say, “and look how they
Dressed us for the beach.”The sea holiday
Was her past, mine is her laughter.Both wry
With the laboured ease of loss.
Now she’s been dead nearly as many years
As that girl lived. And of this circumstances
There is nothing to say at all.
It’s silence silences.

Choose the most appropriate option out of the following:                                                                                

(i)The two girl cousins were holding

(a) Each other’s hands            (b)The hand of the poet     

(c)Their uncle’s hands              (d)One of his mother’s hands

 (ii) The ‘big girls’ stands for

 (a) The poet’s cousin                       (b)The poet’s mother             

(c) The mother’s elder cousin          (d)His sister.

(iii)Their feet are ‘terribly transient ‘because

(a)They were delicate                                                          (b)They are mortal and will not stay for long

(c)They were very weak                                                      (d)They were importance

(iv) After twenty or thirty years she would laugh at the snapshot because

(a)Dolly and Betty were laughing                                      (b)Dolly and Betty looked the way they were dressed up.

(c)Dolly and Betty looked ridiculous                               (d)Dolly and Betty looked funny

(v)The word ‘transient’ here means:

(a)Immortal                        (b)funny                                 

(c)strange                           (d)that lives only for a short time.

Download the above Poem in PDF (Printable)

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