NCERT Class 11 English Elective Hawk Roosting

Hawk Roosting

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

Inaction, no falsifying dream

Between my hooked head and hooked

feet:

                                                                 Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

                                                                  The convenience of the high trees!

                                                                  The air’s buoyancy and the sub’s ray

                                                                  Are of advantage to me;

And the earth’s face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation

To produce my foot, my each feather:

                                                                     Now I hold Creation in my foot.

                                                                     Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly—

                                                                      I kill where I please because it is all mine.

                                                                     There is no sophistry in my body:

My manners are tearing off heads.

The allotment of death.

For the one path of my flight is direct

Through the bones of the living.

                                                                     No arguments assert my right.

                                                                     The sun is behind me.

                                                                     Nothing has changed since I began,

                                                                     My eye has permitted no change.

                                                                     I am going to keep things like this.

UNDERSTANDING THE POEM

1. Comment on the physical features of the hawk highlighted in the poem and their significance.

2. How does the poem emphasise the physical prowess of the hawk?

3. ‘There is no sophistry in my body’—this statement expresses the brutal frankness of the hawk. Does the poet suggest something through this statement?

4. ‘Now I hold Creation in my foot’—explain the centrality of this assertion in the poem. What makes the hawk’s assertion of its invincibility so categorical?

5. Why is the poem entitled ‘Hawk Roosting’?

6. Bring out the parallel suggested between the predatory instincts of the bird and human behaviour.

TRY THIS OUT

1. Consult a dictionary or an encyclopedia to differentiate between the following birds eagle hawk kite vulture

2. To what aspects of human behaviour do the following adjectives apply eagle-eyed hawkish

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 11 English Elective Hawk Roosting