ENGLISH-1ST PAPER- POETRY(XII) POEM- 5 & 6

Poem-5

                                                                    A Lament                           - P.B. Shelley
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Central Idea

“No one is immortal in the world.”

In the poem ‘A Lament’ the poet describes about his mood. He is sad with his life because he feels disappointment and failure in his life. Now he wishes to cling death to end the suffering of his life. He is a great lover of nature but he finds him helpless to enjoy the pleasures of nature. The beauty of nature is unable to delight him as he is in the depth of sorrow. He recalls the happy moments of his youth and he is greatly pained at the passing of that time forever.

Explanation

1. o world! O life! ……………………………………………………………………. never more!

Reference: These lines have been taken from the poem ‘A Lament’ composed by P. B. Shelley, A Poet Of Sorrow.

Context: Here the poet expresses his eleventh hours of his life. At that time he thinks about his past life.

Explanation: In this poem the poet is telling us that his life  is passing very near to death. He feels that his death time has come now. By and by he is moving towards death. He says that his life days are numbered. He begins to shiver to think his past troubles and difficulties which he had fought so bravely in the past. The freshness of joy and various experience as well as the beauty of nature as he had in the past, he can never regain.

So the poet is in a very sad condition to think all these things.

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    Poem-6

                                                       La Belle Dame Sans Merci                       - John Keats

                                                                                                                              (1795-1821)
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Central Idea

“True love is hard to find in the modern age of society”

The poem is a short love story. In it the poet tells us that an unfaithful beloved, sometimes spoils our life. He says that there was a beautiful lady who charms a knight but cheats him badly.

            The knight falls in love with her. He makes a garland for her head and bracelet for wrist. She becomes very happy and takes him to her cave. She offers him sweet roots and wild honey. She weeps and sighs to show her love for him. She lulls him to sleep by singing a sweet song.

            In his sleep he sees a dream. In this dream he finds pale kings, princes and warriors. They warn him not to trust the unfaithful lady. When he wake up, he finds himself alone by the cold hill side.

Thus knight was undone in love.

Explanation

1. I see……………………………………………………………………………………….... too.

Reference: These lines have been taken from the poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Mercy’ composed by ‘John Keats’, A Famous Romantic Poet.

Context: In these lines the poet describes the poor condition of the armed warrior. He was wondering alone by the cold hill side.

Explanation: The poet says that the warrior looks very sad and mentally disturbed. His face is as white as a lily. It looks pale and faded.

            There are drops of sweat on his face due to great mental confusion. His cheeks have lost rosy colour. They look like a fading rose. Really the knight is suffering from the mental fever. So the poet wants to know the cause of his trouble.

Note: There is a fine use of metaphor in the line-‘I see a lily on thy brow.’

2. I met ………………………………………………………………………………… wild.

Reference: Previous.

Context: Here the knight tells the poet how he fell in love with a beautiful lady and how the lady showed her deep love to attract him and he also told her that he loved her deeply.

Explanation: The knight says that he met a lady in the grassland. She was very beautiful. She looked like a fairy’s daughter. She had long hair. She walked very lightly. Her eyes was full of love. In fact she had no comparison in beauty.

3. She took ………………………………………………………………………………. kisses four.

Reference-context: Previous.

Explanation: The lady took the knight in the secret cave. There she wept and sighed painfully. She wept because she was afraid of being left alone by the knight. So the knight also assured her about his true love. He shut her eyes and kissed many times.

4. I saw ………………………………………………………………………………… in thrall.

Reference: Previous.

Context: The beautiful lady took the knight to her fairy cave and made him to sleep. Here the poet tells us about the dream, Seen by the knight there.

Explanation: The knight saw a fearful dream in the cave. He saw kings, princes and warriors. All of them looked as pale as death.

            They warned that the beautiful lady without mercy had deceived him. They were all her victims. They had been cheated by the beauty of this lady. So the knight should not trust her.

5. And this is …………………………………………………………………………..… sing.

Reference: Previous.

Context: In this concluding last lines the knight explains the reason for this wandering about in the cold weather.

Explanation: The knight says that when he wakeup, he found that the beautiful lady had gone. He had been cheated by her. So he wanted to meet her.

            This was the reason why he was wandering about all alone with sorrowful looks. At such a time of old the grass had dried up from the lake and no birds are singing a song.