Read the stanza given below and answer the questions that follow each:
The little old house was out with a little new shed
In front at the edge of the road where the traffic sped
A roadside stand that too pathetically pled
It would not be fair to say for a dole of bread
But for some of the money, the cash, whose flow supports
The flower of cities from sinking and withering faint
1. Where was the little new shed put up? What was its purpose?
2. What did it plead for? Why do you think it pled pathetically?
1. The little new shed was put up in front of an old house at the edge of the road. It was to sell some cheap things.
2. It pleaded for monetary help from the polished traffic with the sale of their cheap items. It pled pathetically because people of high strata of life passed from the road indifferently.
Read the stanza given below and answer the questions that follow each:
Offered for sale wild berries in wooden quarts
Or crook-necked golden squash with silver warts
Or beauty rest in a beautiful mountain scene
You have the money, but if you want to be mean
Why keep money (this crossly) and go along.
The hurt to the scenery wouldn’t be my complaint
So much as the trusting sorrow of what is unsaid
1. What was offered for sale and where?
2. According to the poet where does the beauty rest?
3. Explain: If you want to be mean.
Read the stanza given below and answer the questions that follow each:
It is in the news that all these pitiful kin are to be bought out and mercifully gathered in
To live in villages, next to the theatre and the store
Where they won’t have to think for themselves anymore.
1. What was there in the news?
2. Where were the people to be settled?
3. What would be their state there?
4. Who are the ‘pitiful kin’ here?
Read the stanza given below and answer the questions that follow each:
But for some of the money, the cash, whose flow supports The flower of cities from sinking and withering faint
The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
At having the landscape marred with the artless paint
Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong
1. What is that supports the flow of cities?
2. What is the significance of the cash flow for city folk?
3. What do you understand by the polished traffic?
4. How did a stopping car react for the landscape?
5. Which word in the stanza means - fading?
Read the stanza given below and answer the questions that follow each:
Here far from the city we make our roadside stand
And ask for some city money to feel in hand
To try if it will not make our being expand
And give us the life of the moving pictures promise
That the party in power is said to be keeping from us.
1. Who made a roadside stand and where?
2. Who wanted to feel the money in hand?
3. Who hoped to be helped and by whom?
4. What was the promise made and who made it?
