Treasure Trove Poems Workbook Answers Daffodils
Daffodils Questions and Answers Extract Based
Question 1.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
(a) What was the poet doing ? What did the poet see ?
(b) What captivated the heart of poet ? Why was the poet amazed and thrilled ?
(c) What image does the following line bring to us. 7 wandered lonely as a cloud’ ? For what does the word ‘crowd’ stand ?
(d) Which figure of speech has been used in the following lines. Also explain it clearly.
‘When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils’,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.’
(e) What made the daffodils flutter and dance ? What are the objects the poet compares with the daffodils ? What is the effect of daffodils on the poet ?
(f) Find out the figure of speech in the following line :
‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’. Explain it clearly.
Answer.
(a) The poet was walking without any purpose, lonely in the midst of hills and valleys. During his solitary walk, the poet came across a large number of daffodils growing beneath the trees along the bank of lake.
(b) The sight of a large number of daffodils growing near the lake captivated the poet’s heart. As the poet had never seen such a beautiful sight of the dancing daffodils in his life, he was amazed to see it and was thrilled with extraordinary joy and happiness.
(c) The poem paints a picture (image) of the person taking a stroll and feeling lonely. This brings to bear the solitary state the person finds himself in. And all of a sudden, he stumbles upon a field of golden daffodils. The word ‘crowd’ has been used in the sense of large number, but here it indicates the ‘people’. The daffodils which were in a large number, were providing the poet their company in the ‘group of people’ so that the poet could get rid of his loneliness.
(d) ‘Crowd’ and ‘fluttering and dancing’ extend the personification because human characteristics are given to daffodils to suggest that they provide good company to someone who is lonely and dejected. The daffodils ‘flutter’ and ‘dance’ just like a merry group of people. A large number of daffodils seem to be dancing, celebrating their freedom.
(e) A gentle and soothing wind made the daffodils flutter and dance. The poet compares the daffodils with the dancing waves and shining and twinkling stars. The daffodils fill the poet’s heart with pleasure and he feels happy and joyous with them.
(f) In the line given above, the poet has used the figure of speech simile when he compares himself with the cloud lonely, free from duty and responsibility. In the same line, the figure of speech personification is also found because a cloud can obviously not wander or feel lonely-these are human attributes or actions.
Question 2.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly danee.
(a) When was the poet roaming aimlessly ? How does he compare his solitary wandering ? What does he try to show when he compares himself with a cloud in the earlier lines ?
(b) What did the poet happen to see during his solitary walk ? What captivated the poet’s heart and mind ?
(c) For what does ‘they’ refer ? Why have they been compared to the milky way ? Which figure of speech is found in the line : ‘Tossing their heads in a sprightly dance’ ?
(d) What is being compared to the stars and why ?
(e) What do the phrases ‘never-ending’ and ‘continuous’ suggest ? How does the poet exaggerate the number of the flowers ? What does it indicate ?
(f) What resemblance does the poet find between the stars and daffodils ? What does the comparison of the daffodils with stars of milky way suggest ?
(g) What is meant by ‘the margin of the bay’ ? What makes the poet see into the metaphysical beauty of the daffodils ?
Answer.
(a) The poet was roaming aimlessly in the midst of hills and valleys near a lake. He was all alone to wander freely akin to a patch of cloud floating in the sky, over the valleys and hills. By comparing himself to a cloud in the first line of the poem, the poet signifies his close identification with the nature that surrounds him. He pictures himself as a part of natural world, not separate from it.
(b) During his solitary walk, the poet happened to see a large number of golden daffodils growing beside a lake under the trees. The beautiful sight of the dancing daffodils captivated the heart and the mind of the poet.
(c) ‘They’ refers to the golden daffodils. They have been compared to the Milky Way because the poet feels the number of the daffodils as unending as the stars in the Milky Way. The poet has used the figure of speech personification in the line given above. The picture created by this description is one of the happy dancers dancing and tossing their heads against each other in very happy situation.
(d) The host of golden daffodils by the side of the lake under the trees has been compared to the stars. A milky way is a cluster of star which shines brightly across a huge stretch of space, similarly like the stars in the milky way the poet feels that the daffodils are not only uncountable but also they are dancing with full energy and joy in never ending line along the margin of the lake.
(e) The flowers were visible as far as the poet could see along the shore-line of a bay. That is why he uses the phrases ‘never-ending’ and ‘countinuous’. These phrases may also suggest that the flowers left an everlasting impact on him. The poet exaggerates the number of flowers by saying ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance’. It indicates that the poet has never seen so many daffodils at once. So he was just overjoyed. This type of exaggeration is called hyperbole.
(f) The poet finds great resemblance between the stars and the daffodils. The flowers were as countless as the stars in the milky way in the sky. The comparison of the daffodils with stars of milky way suggests that the daffodils were beautifying the earth as the stars were making the sky beautiful.
(g) The margin of the lake is here presented as the milky way in which the stars of daffodils were shining. The poet recalls that the daffodils stretched in an endless row on the shore of the lake. The memory of the daffodils induces a visionary state in which the poet sees into the metaphysical beauty of the daffodils and his heart joins them in their jovial dance.
Question 3.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
Igazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
(a) Why did the poet stop on seeing the daffodils ? What do the daffodils represent in the poem ?
(b) What ‘wealth’ did memories of the scene give to the poet ? List the words that heighten the sound effect in the poem.
(c) About which ‘jocund company’ is the poet referring to ?
(d) Which figure of speech does the poet use in this stanza ?
(e) What did the poet feel in the dance competition between daffodils and waves ?
(f) What does the poet mean when he says, ‘A poet could not but be gay’ ? Why does the poet repeat the word ‘gazed’ ?
Answer.
(a) The poet stopped on seeing the daffodils because never before in his life he had seen such beautiful golden daffodils and that too in such a very large number. He was greatly fascinated towards them. Daffodils represent the beauty of nature and its healthy, purifying everlasting and enduring impact on human beings.
(b) Memories of the scene gave ‘wealth’ of natural beauty, happiness, spiritual joy, pleasure and ecstasy to the poet. The words like cloud, crowd, hills, daffodils, trees, breeze, heighten the sound effect in the poem.
(c) The poet is referring to the jocund company of the host of golden daffodils dancing in joy by the side of the lake under the trees. Along with them the waves in the lake too were dancing by the side of the daffodils. A poet was bound to be happy in such a joyful company of the daffodils and the waves.
(d) This stanza extends the personification with the waves also dancing, but the daffodils joyously outdance them. The poet says their company is ‘jocund’—they are full of joy and life. The metaphor emphasises the joy nature can bring, for the poet declares that he did not know what wealth he had collected there in his memory. He was enriched by the experience without even realising it at that time.
(e) The poet saw the rising and falling waves of the lake near the daffodils. These waves also seemed to be dancing with joy. While rising above, these
waves shone brightly and looked very beautiful, but the poet felt that the dance of the daffodils was more joyful than the sparkling waves of the lake.
(f) The daffodils seemed to be dancing with much more liveliness and vigour. This sight of the dancing daffodils filled the whole atmosphere with extraordinary joy and happiness. The poet is of the opinion that no sensitive person can help feeling delighted in the company of such joyful companions. The word ‘gazed’ is used twice to indicate how moved or charmed the poet was. So he gazed at them for a long time, forgetting his surroundings.
Question 4.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
(a) Could the poet realise the significance of the scene when he had first seen it, why ?
(b) How did wealth come to the poet by looking at the scene before him ? What did Wordsworth see when he lay upon his couch ? What happened to the poet ?
(c) How was the poet affected by the experience of seeing the daffodils ?
(d) What does the poet mean by ‘the bliss of solitude’ ?
(e) Mention the two moods of the poet. Which figure of speech has been used in the following lines :
‘And then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils.’
(f) What does the poet think about the consoling and soothing effect of Nature ?
Answer.
(a) No, the poet could not realise the significance of the scene when he had first seen it because, in accordance with the poet he could visualise what wealth of joy the sight of the daffodils had brought to him. He could scarcely believe that the recollection of the scene of the daffodils would make his vacant times a source of happiness and satisfaction.
(b) William Wordsworth was a poet of nature. He loved, worshipped and appreciated natural beauty. When he looked at the beautiful scene of the daffodils he valued his happiness as wealth. Whenever he lay on his couch, the beautiful scene of the daffodils came before his eyes. His heart then filled with pleasure and danced with daffodils. His loneliness then became a great joy.
(c) The poet was delighted by the wonderful sight. This is explicitly revealed in the use of diction of ‘bliss’ and ‘pleasure’, and he was so enjoyable that his heart seemed to dance with the daffodils. He also felt the bliss of solitude because it was peaceful and comfortable to be alone sometimes in such huge open area, and seeing the flowers seemed like happy people, he wanted to become a part of them.
(d) By the term ‘bliss of solitude’, the poet wants to mean that he felt really happy in the joyful company of the daffodils and the waves. Both the flowers and waves bear in a joyful mood. But they seemed to compete with each other in such a mood. The poet caught the joyful mood and thus became a part of nature itself. He only kept on watching the scene, unable to decide what wealth of joy, he had received from it. The greater benefit of this experience was that whenever the poet lay on his couch in an unoccupied and sad mood, the sweet memory of the daffodils crushed upon his eye of imagination ; which was a source of joy and inspiration to the poet in his lovely and pensive mood.
(e) The two moods of the poet are : Happy mood when he is free from worries and a pensive mood when he is serious and thoughtful. In the lines given above, the poet has used the figure of speech personification to emphasise that whenever the poet feels alone, he continues to find solace in his memory of the company he kept with the daffodils.
(f) The poet thinks that Nature is the great source of true happiness, joy, peace and consolation. It brings to man spiritual and moral giving feelings. It has soothing and refreshing effects on the distressed and dejected hearts and minds of human beings. Nature has the solution for all the problems of mankind. Through Nature, man seeks salvation.
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