Chapter 5, Class 7: The Daffodils: Sunbeam English Reader: Questions-Answers

1. Did you understand the theme of the poem?

Discuss with your teacher the following questions orally. Then, write the answers in your exercise book.

(a) Read the first stanza. Then find the answer to the following question: With what does the poet William Wordsworth compare himself?

Ans: The poet William Wordsworth compares himself with a piece of lonely cloud.

(b) Read the second stanza. Now find out the following: With what does Wordsworth compare the daffodils?

Ans: The poet compares the daffodils with the twinkling stars on the milky way.

(c) Read and recite the third stanza. Now find out what Wordsworth means by 'jocund' company from the options below:

(i) happy and cheerful

(ii) talkative

(iii) quiet and sad

Ans: (i) Happy and cheerful

(d) Read and recite the lines:

"I gazed and gazed but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought."

What does the poet mean by the word 'wealth'? Why does he use the word here?

Ans: 'Wealth' here means the divine joy that Wordsworth felt on seeing the daffodils.

The poet feels that nothing else can give him more pleasure than this beauty of nature. So he uses this word here.

(e) Read the last stanza of the poem and find out the following information:

What happens to the poet when he lies on his couch in a sad and thoughtful mood?

Ans: The beautiful dancing daffodils appear in his mind's eye. He feels a divine bliss which he calls 'the bliss of solitude'.

2. Choose the correct option in each of the following questions:

(a) The poet compares himself to

(i) a piece of lonely cloud

(ii) a host of golden daffodils

(iii) a lake

(iv) the trees

Ans: (i) a piece of lonely cloud

b. While wandering alone, the poet saw

(i) a crowd of people

(ii) clouds floating over vales and hills

(iii) a host of golden daffodils

(iv) a lake

Ans: (iii) a host of golden daffodils

(c) The poet compares the daffodils to

(i) a lonely cloud

(ii) a lake

(iii) the stars in the milky way

(iv) a bay

Ans: (iii) the stars in the milky way.

(d) The 'jocund company' referred to is the company of

(i) the daffodils

(ii) the sparkling waves of the lake

(iii) the dancing daffodils and the waves of the lake

(iv) the stars on the milky way

Ans: (iii) the dancing daffodils and the waves of the lake.

(e) The inward eye of the poet is the poet's

(i) vacant mood

(ii) thoughtful mood

(iii) imagination

(iv) bliss of solitude

Ans: imagination

3. Read the poem and match the following:

Ans:

The waves - danced beside the daffodils.

The poet - saw a host of golden daffodils

A cloud - floated over valleys and hills

The daffodils - stretched in a never ending line

The poet's heart - filled with pleasure and danced with the daffodils

4. Read the poem again and answer the following questions:

(a) Find a word in stanza 1 that means 'to roam about'.

Ans: Wandered.

(b) Find out what 'O'er' means. How will you write the actual word?

Ans: 'O'er' means extending directly upwards from. The actual word is 'Over'.

(c) Find a word in stanza 2 which means 'a lake'.

Ans: Bay.

(d) What does the poet refer to when he says 'Ten thousand saw I'?

Ans: A lot of.

(e) What is 'sprightly dance'?

Ans: A dance full of energy.

(f) Give another word each for 'glee' and 'jocund'.

Ans: 'Glee' means a 'great delight.'

'Jocund' means 'cheerful and light-hearted'.

(g) What is 'outdid' in 'outdid the sparkling waves'?

Ans: Here 'outdid' means the beauty of the dancing daffodils surpassed that of the sparkling waves.

(h) Give the opposite of the following words: vacant, pleasure, bliss

Ans:

Vacant - full

Pleasure - pain

Bliss - misery.

5. Practise the pronunciation.

Ans:

Wandered - wondered

Breeze - bridge

Shine - sign

Stretched - stressed

They - day

Show - sow

Flash - flesh

Heart - hurt

6. Choose from the box the word rhyming with the underlined word and complete the sentence:

        [still, dancing, mood, breeze.]

Ans:

(i) The sun is shining and the girl is dancing

(ii) The forest is full of green trees and the flowers are dancing in the cool breeze

(iii) On the top of the bare hill, I stand mute and still

(iv) Don't spoil my mood by being so rude.

7. Rewrite the following poetic lines in everyday English.

(i) Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Ans: I saw a lot at a glance

(ii) For oft when on my couch I lie in vacant or pensive mood.

Ans: As I frequently lie on my bed in casual or bad mood.

(iii) Then my heart with pleasure fills

Ans: My heart is then filled with pleasure.