Poem 2 ENGLISH - Poem 2

It is the engine of her family.
She strokes it full, then flirts out to a branch-end
Showing her barred face identity mask
Questions:
Q.1. Why has the word ‘engine’ been used to describe her family?
Q.2. Who is ‘she’? How does she stroke the engine?

The Laburnum top is silent, quite still.
In the afternoon yellow September sunlight,
A few leaves yellowing, all its seeds fallen.
Questions:
Q.1. Describe the laburnum tree.
Q.2. What is the mood in these lines?

Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt.
She enters the thickness, and a machine starts up
Of chitterings, and a tremor of wings, and trillings
The whole tree trembles and thrills.
Questions:
Q.1. Who is ‘She’ in the second line? Where does she enter?
Q.2. What is the ‘machine’ referred to inline two?

Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup whisperings,
She launches away, towards the infinite
And the laburnum subsides to empty.
Questions:
Q.1. Who has been described in the first line?
Q.2. What impression is created by the description?

A few leaves yellowing, all its seeds fallen.
Till the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup
A suddenness, a startlement, at a branch end.
Questions:
Q.1. What has happened to the tree?
Q.2. How does the mood change on the arrival of the goldfinch?

‘Showing her barred face identity mask’

‘It is the engine of her family’

‘The whole tree trembles and thrills’

‘Of chitterings, and a tremor of wings, and trillings’

‘Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt’

What does the phrase ‘her barred face identity mask’ mean?

What do you like most about the poem?

Why is the image of the engine evoked by the poet?

To what is the bird’s movement compared? What is the basis for the comparison?

What do you notice about the beginning and the ending of the poem?