CBSE Class 10 English The Trees and Fog (First Flight Poems) Important Questions Set 06

Answer: (a) They are moving out of the poet’s house, where they were kept indoors.
(b) The forest was empty because it had no trees.
(c) It suggests the sun’s rays resting in the shade of trees.
(d) It will be full of trees again.

Teacher's Note:
1. The extract names three things that a treeless forest lacks.
2. The sun’s ‘feet’ are its rays reaching the ground through the leaves.

Answer: (a) They struggle to free themselves from the cracks in the veranda floor.
(b) They strain towards the glass, trying to get out.
(c) They are compared to newly discharged patients.
(d) The boughs are stiff and long-cramped, like patients who are weak but eager to leave the clinic.

Teacher's Note:
1. This simile shows the effort and weakness of the trees, as well as their urge to leave.
2. Name the device as ‘simile’.

Answer: (a) She is sitting inside the house with the veranda doors open.
(b) She is writing long letters.
(c) She hardly mentions the departure of the forest from the house.
(d) The night is fresh and the full moon shines in an open sky.

Teacher's Note:
1. Her silence about the trees leaving suggests that people often ignore important changes.
2. Note the open doors, which help the trees escape.

Answer: (a) The smell of leaves and lichen.
(b) It is full of whispers.
(c) The whispers will be silent, as the trees will be gone.
(d) ‘The Trees’ by Adrienne Rich.

Teacher's Note:
1. The smell is described as a voice calling for freedom.
2. Tomorrow the house will be quiet because the trees will have left.

Answer: (a) The glass of the window.
(b) They are stumbling forward into the night.
(c) The winds.
(d) The moon looks broken like a mirror because its light is scattered among the branches of the tallest oak.

Teacher's Note:
1. The winds welcome the trees to their freedom.
2. The broken moon is an image of light flashing through the oak’s leaves.

Answer: (a) It comes on little cat feet, silently.
(b) It sits looking over the harbour and the city.
(c) It moves on.
(d) It is a metaphor, as the fog is called a cat; the poet is Carl Sandburg.

Teacher's Note:
1. The poem is an extended metaphor with no ‘like’ or ‘as’.
2. The word ‘haunches’ shows the fog sitting like a cat.

Answer: In a forest without trees, no bird can sit, no insect can hide, and the sun cannot ‘bury its feet in shadow’, that is, its rays cannot rest in the shade of leaves. The forest is empty because it has no trees.

Teacher's Note:
1. Three items are asked, so list exactly three.
2. Explain the sun’s ‘feet’ briefly.

Answer: The trees are inside the poet’s house, around the veranda. The roots work all night to free themselves from the cracks in the floor, the leaves strain towards the glass, and the twigs are stiff with effort as they try to go out into the forest.

Teacher's Note:
1. Answer for the roots, leaves and twigs separately.
2. Mention the house and the veranda.

Answer: At first the whole moon shines in an open sky. At the end it is ‘broken like a mirror’, its pieces flashing in the crown of the tallest oak. The change is caused by the trees, whose branches now stand against the sky and break the moon’s light into pieces.

Teacher's Note:
1. Contrast the two descriptions.
2. Name the tallest oak as the cause.

Answer: The house becomes silent. The smell of leaves and lichen that reached the rooms like a voice and the whispers filling the poet’s head will fade by tomorrow because the trees have gone back to the forest.

Teacher's Note:
1. The silence is the effect of the trees’ departure.
2. Link it to the ‘voice’ and ‘whispers’ in the poem.

Answer: She hardly mentions it because people often stay silent about important events that seem too unexpected or too hard to explain. It may also hint that we ignore the loss of trees even though we know how vital they are for life.

Teacher's Note:
1. This question has more than one acceptable view.
2. State your view and support it with the word ‘scarcely’.

Answer: The fog comes silently ‘on little cat feet’, sits on silent haunches looking over the harbour and the city, and then moves on without warning, as a cat does. The poet treats the fog as a living creature.

Teacher's Note:
1. Explain at least two points of similarity.
2. Use the words ‘feet’ and ‘haunches’.

Answer: They show the fog spreading over the whole place and sitting above it as if watching. It is calm, still and silent, like a cat on its haunches surveying its surroundings.

Teacher's Note:
1. The phrase gives the fog a living look.
2. Mention that it covers both harbour and city.

Answer: The fog arrives on silent little feet, it sits on its haunches and looks around, and it then moves on without any sound. These three actions are all typical of a cat.

Teacher's Note:
1. Three points are needed, one for coming, one for sitting and one for leaving.
2. Keep each point short.

Answer: Yes, it does. People keep trees indoors for decoration while forests are cut down, so the trees feel imprisoned. The poem shows them breaking free, with roots working all night and the glass shattering, and the forest, which had stood empty, is refilled. This is like the tiger pacing in a zoo cage in another poem: both long for freedom. The poet suggests that nature must be allowed to live in its own place, and that human beings ignore this at their own cost.

Teacher's Note:
1. Show the conflict with two clear images from the poem.
2. A comparison with ‘A Tiger in the Zoo’ gives a good ending.

Answer: If the trees stand for people, especially women, the poem is about freedom from confinement. The house is a place that limits them, and the effort of the roots and twigs shows their struggle to break free. The tired boughs, like patients leaving a clinic, show people who are healing and getting ready for a larger life. Their moving to the forest stands for rejoining the world and fulfilling their purpose, and the poet’s silence suggests that society hardly notices such quiet change.

Teacher's Note:
1. Move from the literal trees to the symbolic meaning.
2. Use the clinic simile to support your answer.

Answer: The fog comes silently, settles for a time and then moves on. Difficulties arrive in the same way: they cover our life for a while but do not stay for ever. If we think of a problem as fog, we need not lose courage, because it will pass. The poem also shows the poet’s close attention to nature, since only a careful observer would notice that fog behaves like a cat, a lesson to look at ordinary things closely.

Teacher's Note:
1. Treat the fog as a symbol of problems that pass.
2. Add a line on the poet’s observation.

Answer: Sandburg calls the fog a cat without using ‘like’ or ‘as’, so the comparison is a metaphor that runs through the whole poem. Its ‘little cat feet’, its sitting on ‘silent haunches’ and its moving on all show the behaviour of an animal. The short lines and simple words create a quiet mood. The poem tells us that nature is full of beauty if we observe it, and that fog is a temporary visitor that arrives and leaves silently.

Teacher's Note:
1. Name the device and give three phrases from the poem.
2. State the message in the last line.