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iv. Countrymen who are dedicated and persistent in their pursuit of excellence and
self-improvement strive continuously to gain power over other nations.

c. What figure of speech do you notice in these lines?

i. simile ii. allusion iii. repetition iv. personification

2. Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit/Where the mind is led forward by thee/Into
ever-widening thought and action

a. Explain the first line.

b. Whom does the poet address as ‘thee’?

c. What does the term ‘ever-widening thought and action’ signify?

Time to think and answer

1. Whom do you think the poet is addressing in the poem? What feelings does the poem
arouse in the reader? Answer in 80 words.

2. Do you feel that the nationalistic fervour of the age in which this poem was written has been
diluted over time? Do we still see signs of patriotism around us? Give a few examples from
everyday life. Answer in 100–120 words.

Time to enjoy

1. You have already studied about imagery in previous classes. Imagery helps us to create
word-pictures by reading the language used by the poet or writer. Read the poem again and
find some more examples of imagery.

2. When an author or poet makes an indirect reference to some idea, figure, other text, place,

or event that originates from outside the text, it is called allusion. For example,
Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

In the above lines, American poet Robert Frost makes an allusion to the Biblical Garden of
Eden (‘so Eden sank to grief’) to strengthen the idea that nothing—not even Paradise—can
last forever. Read the poem and find some examples of allusion.

3. You have already studied about personification in previous classes. It gives
human qualities or characteristics to something that is not human. Read the
poem again and find some more examples of personification.

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