Chapter 3.4 – Leisure
Warming up!
1. Discuss in groups and share with one another.
(1) The daily routine of your mother and father on working days
Ans: The daily routine of my parents is as follows:
(i) Mother
My mother wakes up at 5 in the morning and prepares tiffin for me and my father. Then she wakes us up and helps us get ready. Then, she goes to her gym for a daily workout. After coming back from the gym, she starts preparing lunch. After lunch, she takes a nap and then goes out to meet her friends. She comes in the evening and prepares dinner. She watches TV for a while and then sleeps.
(ii) Father
My father is my hero. I’ve seen him work hard for us all his life. He usually wakes up at 6 a.m. Then he brushes his teeth, has his breakfast, and goes jogging. He comes back and gets ready for work. He’s a librarian. He helps my mother prepare for our tiffins and leaves for his office. He comes back around 6 in the evening and has some snacks. After that, he helps me with my homework. Sometimes he hangs out with his friends and comes back and gets some dinner. After that, he reads his newspaper, has his dinner, and sleeps by 11.
(2) How your family relaxes on weekends
Ans: There are many ways families can relax and detox on the weekends from their hectic routines. On the weekdays, they do not spend time together, so it is best to do everything together on the weekends. Anything in which all the members participate together and enjoy themselves is something worth doing every weekend. Playing games can bring family members closer. Watching movies and sports matches together is also a great source of leisure for family time.
(3) When you go for a picnic, what and how do you enjoy?
Ans: Yes, I usually go to picnics. My parents take me to public parks and gardens for outings, and we enjoy ourselves a lot by playing many games and having lunch outdoors. We usually go to Chatbir Zoo, rock garden, sukhna lake and rose garden in my city for picnics. We go to these places because they are full of greenery, and sitting in a place full of plants and shady trees is a very blissful and calming experience. We enjoy a lot of picnics at these places in the winter afternoons, as we all love to bask in the sun.
(4) Do you spend time admiring and thinking over the beauties of nature? Elaborate your response.
Ans: Yes, we can spend some time thinking about and admiring the natural beauties. We have complex and big brains. It is what actually sets human beings apart from the remaining animal species on Earth. Human beings have the capability to construct amazing buildings that stagger individuals with their unique beauty. The places only exist in houses. We have also created many complex objects.
2. When a poet / writer attempts to describe something in words, so that it appeals to our five senses (sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste) he / she has used a device called Imagery.
For example :
‘a host of golden daffodils’.
‘to a chasm, deep and vast and wide’.
Go through other poems in your textbook or other books and find out lines that contain Imagery. Write them down along with the name of the poem and line / stanza number.
Ans: Students must do this on their own.
3. Prepare an Acrostic from the word ‘Leisure’. The words should be related to what one likes to do in free time.
L __________
E __________
I __________
S __________
U __________
Reading stories
E __________
Ans:
L – Learn new skills
E – Enjoy movies
I – Imagine beautiful things
S – Sleep
U – Undertake to clean house
R – Read stories
E – Exercise
In Between the Lesson!
Q1. What does the poet want us to stare at and gain from it?
Ans: The poet wants to stare at sheep and cows, at squirrels hiding their nuts in grass, at streams full of stars, at the night sky, and at a dancing girl’s feet. We will gain pleasure from it.
Q2. List the beautiful things in nature that we overlook.
Ans: The beautiful things that we usually overlook in nature are the trees, flowers, beautiful rocks, snow, clouds, soft grasses, sweet sunshine, the cold moonlight, etc.
ENGLISH WORKSHOP
1. Say where . . . . . . .
(a) _______ do the cows and sheep stand?
Ans: The cows and sheep stand beneath the branches of a tree.
(b) _______ do squirrels store their food?
Ans: Squirrels store their food in grass.
(c) _______ do stars shine in the daytime?
Ans: In the daytime, stars shine in the streams.
(d) _______ does Beauty’s smile begin?
Ans: Beauty’s smile begins in her eyes.
2. Think and answer in your own words.
(a) What could have inspired the poet to compose this poem? Do you think it relates to our present day life? Defend your choice.
Ans: The poet must have seen the sufferings of people who don’t have time to appreciate the beauty of nature. They are busy sorting out their worries. Yes, it relates to our present-day lives because humans stay in their houses or go to work but don’t spare time for nature.
(b) Which line proves that in our busy lives we do not even have a fraction of a second to enjoy nature’s beauty?
Ans: The line which proves that in our busy lives we do not even have a fraction of a second to enjoy nature’s beauty is,
(i) What is this life if, full of care,
(ii) We have no time to stand and stare ?
(c) ‘Beauty’ in stanza 5 to 6 can refer to a beautiful maiden as well as nature itself. Explain when and how nature ‘dances’ and also ‘smiles’.
Ans: Nature is always dancing when the slow breeze blows; it just tries to move the heads of the trees. The flowers blow in the breeze. It smiles when new flowers come and dance in the fields.
(d) Why does the poet call our life ‘poor’?
Ans: The poet calls our lives poor because they are full of worries and do not have time to appreciate nature’s beauty.
3. You have learnt that when a human attribute is given to anything that is not a human being or it is spoken of as a person, the Figure of Speech used is called ‘Personification’.
(a) Pick out two examples of Personification from the poem.
Ans:
(i) ‘No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance?’ Explanation: Nature has been given the human qualities of ‘glancing’ and ‘dancing’.
(ii) ‘No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich the smile her eyes began.’
Explanation: Nature has been given the human quality of ‘smiling’.
(b) Pick out from the poem, two examples of each of the following Figures of Speech.
(1) Alliteration
Ans:
(i) ‘We have no time to stand and stare.’
Explanation: Repetition of the sound of the letter ‘s’.
(ii) ‘Streams full of stars, like skies at night.’
Explanation: Repetition of the sound of the letter ‘s’.
(2) Simile
Ans:
(i) ‘And stare as long as sheep or cows.’ Explanation: Here, a direct comparison has been made to sheep and cows.
(ii) ‘Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
Explanation: Here, a direct comparison has been made to the night skies.
(3) Metaphor
Ans:
(i) ‘No time to turn at Beauty’s glance.’ Explanation: Here nature has been implicitly compared to a beautiful woman.
(ii) ‘Enrich the smile her eyes began.’ Explanation: Here the blooming of flowers has been implicitly compared to a woman smiling.
(c) The poet opens his poem with a question. Is the question asked to receive some answer? No. It is a question used to emphasize and stress upon the fact that modern man has no time to enrich his life from nature.
Such a device used by poets falls under the Figure of Speech called ‘Interrogation’ or ‘Rhetorical Question’. Refer to the poem ‘The Pilgrim’ and find examples of Interrogation.
Ans:
(i) “Why waste your time in building here ?”
(ii) “Why build ye here at even tide ?”
4. Say where the images from nature given in the poem exist.
AIR / LAND / WATER
(a) beneath the boughs
Ans: land
(b) squirrel hide nuts in grass
Ans: land
(c) streams in daytime
Ans: water
(d) stars / skies at night
Ans: air
5. Make a paraphrase of the poem ‘Leisure’ in your own simple words. Write it down in your notebook.
Ans: The poem Leisure by W.H. Davis is about the importance of leisure in a man’s life.
The poem consists of seven couplets. In the first couplet, the poet says if a man has no leisure in his life, it is full of cares.
In the second couplet, he says a man who has no time to stand idly under a shady tree and stare at cows and sheep grazing, that man’s life is full of burdens and tensions.
In the third couplet, he says a man who has no time to see the beauty of the woods, such as watching the squirrel hide nuts under the grass while he is passing through it, then his life is full of cares.
In the fourth couplet, the poet says a man who is too busy and occupied to look at the beauty of a star-studded sky at night, his life is empty of joy.
In the fifth couplet, the poet says a man who has no time to enjoy the beautiful smile and light gait of a beautiful damsel is leading a meaningless life.
In the sixth couplet, he says a man who can’t see the smile of a beautiful lass, which originates from the eyes and travels to the mouth, making her beautiful, is leading a stressful life.
In the last couplet, the poet says a man who has no leisure to do the above-mentioned things is leading a poor life.