Chapter 3.4 Leisure

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Night

Chapter 3.4 Leisure

Textbook Questions and Answers

Leisure Poem 8th Std Warming Up:

1. Discuss in groups and share with one another:

Question 1.
The daily routine of your mother and father on working days
Answer:
(Points: what time they get up – what time they leave for work – what time they return home – have lunch – dinner – bedtime, etc.)

Question 2.
How your family relaxes on weekends
Answer:
(Points: rest at home – visit relatives – shopping – malls – movies – gardens – catch up on housework, etc.)

Question 3.
When you go for a picnic, what and how do you enjoy it?
Answer:
(Points: go to the beach/mall /garden/movies etc. – relax and enjoy by yourself – sing songs – go in big groups – go as a family – go to restaurants for food, etc.)

Question 4.
Do you spend time admiring and thinking over the beauties of nature? Elaborate on your response.
Answer:
(Points: no beautiful nature around/ gardens nearby – like enjoying natural beauties – prefer city life – like animals and birds – visit zoos and parks. etc.)

2. When a poet I writer attempts (o describe something in words, so that it appeals to our five senses (sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste) he/she has used a des ice called Imager.
For example a host of golden daffodils’.
to a chasm, deep and vast and wide’.
Go through other poems in your textbook or other books and find outlines that contain Imagery. Write them does n along with the name of the poem and line/stanza number.
Answer:
Students can attempt this activity on their own.

3. Prepare un Acrostic from the word ‘Leisure’. The words should be related to what one likes to do in free time:

  1. L ………..
  2. E ………….
  3. I …………
  4. S ………..
  5. U ………..
  6. Reading stories
  7. E …………

Answer:

  1. Laze around
  2. Enjoy movies
  3. Initiate games
  4. Sleep
  5. Undertake to clean house
  6. Read stories
  7. Exercise

1. Say Where:

Question a.
………… do the cows and sheep stand? …………..
Answer:
Beneath the branches of trees.

Question b.
………… do squirrels store their food? ………….
Answer:
In the grass.

Question c.
………….. do stars shine in the daytime …………..
Answer:
In the streams.

Question d.
………….. does Beauty’s smile begin? ……………….
Answer:
In her eyes.

2. Think and answer in your own words:

Question a.
What could have inspired the poet to compose this poem? Do you think it relates to our present-day life? Defend your choice.
Answer:
The poet must have seen the busy lives of people around him, who are always in a hurry and have no leisure to look at the beauty around. Yes, it certainly relates to our present life, which keeps getting busier and busier. Today, with the Internet, the mobile phone, the computer, and social networking sites, our lives are getting more I and more artificial and further from nature than ever before.

Question b.
Which line proves that in our busy lives we do not even have a fraction of a second to enjoy nature’s beauty?
Answer:
The lines are :
No time to see, when woods we pass
Where squirrels hide their nuts in the grass?
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Are streams full of stars, like skies at night?
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance?
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

Question c.
‘Beauty’ in stanza 5 to 6 can refer to a beautiful maiden as well as nature itself. Explain when and how nature ‘dances’ and also ‘smiles’.
Answer:
Nature dances during spring and: summer, when the leaves of trees and the flowers sway in the breeze. Nature smiles at the beginning of spring when the plants begin to once again bloom slowly.

Question d.
Why does the poet call our life ‘poor’?
Answer:
The poet calls our life ‘poor’ because we are always anxious and under stress. We are completely cut off from nature and cannot relax and enjoy its beauty. He feels that this type of life is a ‘poor’ life.

3. You have learned that when u human attribute is given to anything that is not a human being or it is spoken of as a person, the Figure of Speech used is culled as ‘Personification’:

Question a.
Pick out two examples of Personification from the poem
Answer:
(i) ‘No time to turn at Beauty’s glance, I And watch her feet, how they can; dance?’ Nature has been given the human qualities of ‘glancing’ and ‘dancing’.
(ii) ‘No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich the smile her eyes began.’ Nature has been given the human quality of ‘smiling’.

Question b.
Pick out from the poem, two examples of each of the following Figures of Speech:

Question 1.
Alliteration
Answer:
(i) We have no time to stand and stare.’ Repetition of the sound of the letter ‘s’.
(ii) ‘Streams full of stars, like skies at; night.’ Repetition of the sound of the letter ‘s’.

Question 2.
Simile
Answer:
(i) ‘And stare as long as sheep or cows.’ Here, a direct comparison has been made between sheep and cows.
(ii) ‘Streams full of stars, like skies at night.’ Here, a direct comparison has been made to the night skies.

Question 3.
Metaphor
Answer:
(i) ‘No time to turn at Beauty’s; glance.’ Here nature has been implicitly compared to a beautiful woman.
(ii) ‘Enrich the smile her eyes began.’ Here the blooming of flowers has been implicitly compared to a woman smiling.

Question c.
The poet opens his poem with a question. Is the question asked to receive some answer? No. It is a question used to emphasize and stress the fact that modern man has no time to enrich his life from nature. Such a device used by poets falls under the Figure of Speech called ‘Interrogation
or ‘Rhetorical Question’. Refer to the poem ‘The Pilgrim’ and find examples of Interrogation.
Answer:
‘What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?’
Here the poet asks a question to emphasize and stress the fact that modern man has no time to appreciate nature.
(Note: The lines in stanzas 2,3,4,5 and 6 are also examples of Interrogation.)

4. Say where the images from mature given in the poem exist:

Air/Land/Water

Question a.
beneath the thoughts …………..
Answer:
Land

Question b.
squirrel hide nuts in grass …………
Answer:
Land

Question c.
streams in day time ………..
Answer:
Water

Question d.
stars/ skies at night …………
Answer:
Air

5. Make a paraphrase of the poem ‘Leisure’ in your own simple words. Write down in your notebook.
Answer:
In this poem, the poet, W.H. Davies, questions the type of life we are leading if we have no time to appreciate the beauties of nature. He says that we have no time to stand beneath the trees and stare as sheep and cows do. When we are walking through the woods we have no time to watch where the squirrels hide their food in the grass. We have no time to look at streams that sparkle and a twinkle in broad daylight and appear to be full of stars like the skies at night.

We have no time to watch when a beautiful young girl dances, or wait for her lips to complete the smile which started in her eyes. (We can also say that ‘Beauty’ is nature, and we have no time to see trees swaying In the breeze or flowers blooming slowly.)
In the concluding lines, the poet repeats that our life is a poor life if it is full of cares and worries with no time to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of nature.

Additional Important Questions and Answers

Complex Factual Activities:

Question 1.
What does the poet want us to stare at and gain from it?
Answer:
The poet wants us to spare some time from our busy schedules to look at the beauty of nature and enjoy it.

Question 2.
Enlist the beautiful things in nature that we overlook.
Answer:
We overlook:

  1. squirrels hiding their food in the grass
  2. twinkling and sparkling streams
  3. a beautiful girl smile and dance/trees swaying in the breeze and flowers blooming slowly.

Question 3.
Analysis/ Appreciation Of The Poem
Answer:

  1. Poem and poet: ‘Leisure’ by William Henry Davies.
  2. Theme: The poet regrets that ours is a poor life if it is full of cares and worries and we have no time to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of nature.
  3. Tone: Serious and analytical; reflective poem.
  4. Structure and stanzas: The stanzas are of two lines each; seven couplets with lines of equal length.
  5. Rhyme and Rhythm: The rhyme scheme is aa, bb, cc, and so on, with the ending words of each couplet rhyming.
  6. Language and Imagery: The language is simple; the poem has many figures of speech and is full of imagery when the poet describes the beauty of nature.
  7. Figures of Speech: Alliteration, Personification, Simile, Metaphor, Repetition, Interrogation.