The Wild Swans at Coole(Class12 kaleidoscope)Term 2

Languge and Literature (Class 12 kaleidoscope)
The Wild Swans at Coole
William ButlerYeast

W.B. Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist and mystic. He was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary Revival, and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.          

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?  

1. How do the line ‘trees in their autumn beauty’, ‘connect to the poet’s own life?
a) Symbol of middle age decline and fatigue.
b) Symbol of youth
c) Symbol of old age
d) Symbol of new life

2. How does “dry woodland paths’ connect to the poet’s own life?
    a) His life is boring
    b) His life has reached a saturation point
    c) He feels lonely
    d) He is not interested in life.

3. What does the phrase ‘October twilight’ means?
a) The time of day, just before the sun goes away and darkness fall, the most beautiful part of the day.
b) The time of the day before sunrise.
c) The time of the day after sunset
d) The shortest time of the day.

4. How does the word ‘still sky’ connect to the poet’s life?
a) ‘Still sky’ refers to the end of the day the poet indirectly thinks that he is ageing or the poet has come to the evening days of their life.
b) ‘Still sky’ refers to the end of the world because this poem is written at the end of world war I.
c) ‘still sky’ refers to the setting of the poem near the lake in the evening where the sky is still.
d) “Still sky” refers to old age and death.

5. What do ‘the light tread’ and ‘the sore heart’ refer to?
‘Light tread’ refers to a time when the poet was young and he used to walk freely but ‘sore heart’ refers to the present situation where there is some pain in the heart of the poet.
6.     What is the contrast between the liveliness of the swans and human life?
The contrast between the liveliness of the swans and human life is that the poet feels he has grown so old, that he is no longer young and active like the Swans. He feels Swans can move around with full of energy as they are always young and active but human beings get old and cannot move lively like the swan.
7. What contributes to the beauty and mystery of the swans’ lives? 

The beauty and mystery of the Swans’ lives are that as years pass by, their youthfulness remains the same. The poet has grown old, but the Swans have not aged. They carry the same energy and are full of life, even after years have passed; this makes the poet sad. There seems no change in how the Swans move around freely.