ODE TO AUTUMN (Textbook Answers)

ODE TO AUTUMN

Answers (Text-Book Questions)

1.       The expressions in the first stanza which tells us of the abundance and ripeness of the season are “Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness, conspiring with him how to load and bless, the fruit vines that round the thatch- eaves run, and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core.”

2.       The expressions which clearly show examples of personification are – “Close bosom friend of the maturing sun, to bend with apples the moss’d cottage trees.”

3.       Autumn is directly addressed in the second stanza as "thee." The speaker considers autumn during harvest time. Again personified, the speaker thinks of autumn sitting on a granary floor as the grain is being harvested. Then the speaker considers autumn asleep, made drowsy by the perfume of the poppies. Finally, the autumn is watching the apples in a "cyder-press squeezing the juice from apples." Since the first stanza gives subtle indications of being early in the day, the second stanza would be midday or afternoon as autumn has spent "hours by hours" watching the harvest, a sense of sometime gone by.

4.      The poet contrasts Autumn with Spring.

5.      Fruits, crops, vegetables, flowers come to ripeness and lamb grows to fullness.

 

 

Reference to the Context

Think not of them... music too,-

a.                      What should we not think of?

Ans: We should not think of Spring.

b.                 What is the music of Autumn and who or what creates it?

Ans: The music of Autumn includes images, of clouds and harvested fields at sunset. The small gnats hum, the lambs bleat, the crickets sing, Robins whistle and swallows sing. All these create the music.

 

 

EXTRA QUESTION & ANSWER

Q. What is the central idea of the poem?

Ans: The central idea of the poem is that time changes like the seasons. The world is always changing and there is great beauty in this change. Even though the Spring season has its charms, Autumn is also beautiful in its own way. It is a time of bounty when fruits and flowers ripen to give human beings a good harvest for the winter.