Read the poem and answer the questions that follow:
Ode to Autumn
John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Choose the correct alternatives from the options given below:
(a) the two close-bosomed friends mentioned in the first stanza are
(i) the sun and the spring season
(ii) the sun and the autumn season
(iii) the bees and the flowers
(iv) the trees and the fruits that grow on it
(b) The two friends are planning to
(i) fill the trees with apples (ii) fill the hazelnuts with sweetness
(iii) both (i) and (ii) (iv) none of the above
Answer the following questions briefly in your own words:
(c) What is the relationship between the flowers and the bees?
(d) According to the narrator which are the two places where autumn can be seen?
(e) What does the narrator mean by ‘songs of spring’?
(f) Pick out two of the sounds that are a part of the autumn season as mentioned in the poem.
(g) Why according to the narrator are the swallows gathering together?
(h) What is the tone or mood of the poem?
Find words from the passage which mean the same as each of the following:
(i) stop/end (stanza-1)
(j) sticky (stanza-1)
ANSWERS:-
(a) (ii) (b) (iii)
(c) The poet describes autumn as the season where seeds fall to the ground and bloom into plants and flowers when spring comes. Bees make nectar from these flowers — their clammy cells — which they think summer has filled to the brim. They think that summer will continue and the flowers will always be in bloom. (Please check to see if it answers the question).
(d) Two places where autumn may be found are: sitting on the granary floor or sleeping on a half-reaped furrow (a half-harvested field).
(e) The poet describes various sounds which one can hear during autumn and calls them the `music’ of autumn. He asks the spring season where its sounds or `songs’ are, in an almost challenging way.
(f) Two sounds that are part of the autumn season are the chirping of crickets (“Hedge-crickets sing”) and of the red-breast robin bird whistling (“The redbreast whistles from a garden croft”).
(g) The last stanza of the poem describes evening, during which time birds can be heard chirping as they fly to their nests for the night. In the poem, the swallows twitter in the evening skies also because they are singing the song of autumn.
(h) The tone or mood of the poem is that of positivity and peace. The poem elaborates on how though autumn is seen as the season of leaves falling and the approaching winter, it is when the seeds for the coming spring are planted and preserved.
(i) Cease.
(j) Clammy.
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