NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Poem 8 The Trees

The Trees NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Poem 8

The Trees NCERT Text Book Questions and Answers

The Trees Thinking about the Poem

Question 1.
(i) Find, in the first stanza, three things that cannot happen in a treeless forest.
(ii) What picture do these words create in your mind: sun bury its feet in shadow…”? What could the poet mean by the sun’s feet’?
Answer:
(i) birds, insects, sunrays through leaves
(ii) In an area with dense forest cover sun enters through leaves and presents a splendid view. Sun’s feet are sun’s rays.

Question 2.
(i) Where are the trees in the poem? What do their roots, their leaves, and their twigs do?
(ii) What does the poet compare their branches to ?
Answer:
(i) Out of the forest. Roots come out of their cracks. Leaves strain towards the glass. Twigs are stiff.
(ii) The branches are compared to newly discharged patients.

Question 3.
(i) How does the poet describe the moon:
(a) at the beginning of the third stanza, and
(b) at its end? What causes this change?
(ii) What happens to the house when the trees move out of it?
(iii) Why do you think the poet does not mention “the departure of the forest from the house” in her letters ? (Could it be that we are often silent about important happenings that are so unexpected that they embarrass us? Think about this again when you answer the next set of questions.)
Answer:
(i) (a) The whole moon shines brightly.
(b) The moon is shining in fragments.
As the night was moving towards its end, the moon was slowly disappearing.
(ii) The house became silent and lifeless.
(iii) Self-attempt.

The Trees Extra Questions and Answers

The Trees Reference-to-Context Questions

Read the stanza given below and answer the questions that follow:

Question 1.
The trees inside are moving out into the forest,
the forest that was empty all these days
where no bird could sit
no insect hide
no sun bury its feet in shadow
the forest that was empty all these nights
will be full of trees by morning.

(a) The Sun their feet in the trees.
Answer:
buries

(b) The poet conveys that trees are into the forest.
Answer:
moving

(d) Find the antonym of ‘full’ in the extract.
Answer:
empty

Question 2.
All night the roots work
to disengage themselves from the cracks
in the veranda floor.

(a) The roots are separating themselves from the
Ans.
cracks

(b) The trees want to to the forest.
Answer:
go back

(d) Find the same meaning of ‘to become free’.
Answer:
slouching

Question 3.
The leaves strain toward the glass
small twigs stiff with exertion
long-cramped boughs shuffling under the roof
like newly discharged patients
half-dazed, moving to the clinic doors.

(a) The boughs have been compared to the newly discharged …………
Answer:
patients

(b) The leaves ………. toward the glass in an attempt to move out.
Answer:
strain

(d) Find the same meaning of ‘changing place’ in the extract.
Answer:
shuffling

Question 4.
I sit inside, doors open to the veranda
writing long letters
in which I scarcely mention the departure
of the forest from the house.

(a) The poet is writing long ………..
Answer:
letters

(b) The poet does not write about the ……… of the trees in his letter.
Answer:
departure

(d) Find a word which is same in meaning to ‘hardly’ in the extract.
Answer:
scarcely

Question 5.
The night is fresh, the whole moon shines
in a sky still open
the smell of leaves and lichen
still reaches like a voice into the rooms.

(a) The poet compares the ……….. of leaves to a voice.
Answer:
smell

(b) The whole moon …………… when the sky is clear.
Answer:
shines

(d) Find the same meaning of ‘clear’ in the extract.
Answer:
Fresh

Question 6.
My head is full of whispers
which tomorrow will be silent.
Listen. The glass is breaking.
The trees are stumbling forward
into the night.

(a) It will be silent tomorrow because the trees will have ……………. of the house.
Answer:
moved out

(b) The poet listens to the ………….. of glass.
Answer:
breaking

(d) Find the same meaning of the phrase “tripping over” in the extract.
Answer:
stumbling forward.

Question 7
Winds rush to meet them.
The moon is broken like a mirror,
its pieces flash now in the crown
of the tallest oak.

(a) The moon looks like a broken because it is seen through the branches.
Answer:
mirror

(b) The rays of the moon fall on the tallest
Answer:
oak

(d) Find the same meaning of the ‘shine’ in the extract.
Answer:
flash

The Trees Short Answer Question

Question 1.
What are the three things that can’t happen in a treeless forest? [2017]
Answer:
The three things that can’t happen in a treeless forest are :

the sitting of a bird on trees
the hiding of insects and
the sun burying its feet in the shadow of the forest.

The Trees Long Answer Question

Question 1.
‘Give me liberty or give me death’. How far does this phrase illustrate the theme of the poem ‘Trees’?
Answer:
This poem, dwelling upon the rejuvenating spirit of liberty, likens it to reforestation. Without a forest,(freedom), the birds lacked a perch, the insects a hiding place, the sun a shady footrest and nights were empty. Freedom is a hard-won, but silent battle, like disengaging roots from cracks in a verandah floor.

The foliage, like secondary freedom forces, strives to break free through the window glass, and boughs shuffle out from under the roof. Chroniclers of freedom take an overview, as if from a verandah. Their writings hail freedom but scarcely record individual struggles towards freedom.

The writer’s head is filled with freedom’s possibilities while the actual movement towards freedom surges through symbolic shuttered glass panels, into the night.