Question 1:
Identify the stanza that talks of each of the following : individuality, rationalism, hypocrisy.
Answer:
- Stanza 1 talks of rationalism.
- Stanza 2 talks of hypocrisy.
- Stanza 3 talks of individuality.
Question 2:
What, according to the poem, is involved in the process of growing up ?
Answer:
As a person grows up, he becomes a rationalist, an egoist and a hypocrite. He accepts nothing that is not logical. He loses faith in God. He does not believe in hell or heaven. He becomes very conscious of his self. He wants to follow his own desires and ideas. He becomes an egoist. He becomes hypocritical in his behaviour. He does not always mean what he says. He talks of love and preaches of love, but is not so loving in his actions. In short, he loses all the innocence of his childhood.
Question 3:
What is the poet’s feeling towards childhood ?
Answer:
The poet regards childhood as a period of heavenly innocence. A child sincerely feels that there is God above. He is free from all earthly evils. He believes that there is really a Heaven and a Hell. He is truly religious in his soul. A child knows no hypocrisy. He always means what he says. There is no difference between his thoughts and actions. A child is free from any sense of ego. He does not think himself to be different from or superior to others. In short, childhood is a state of heavenly innocence and purity of heart.
Question 4:
Which, do you think, are the most poetic lines ? Why ?
Answer:
The last four lines of the poem are the most poetic. Here the poet creates a lovely image of an infant’s face. He conveys the idea that the innocence of childhood remains only as long as one is an infant. As one grows in years, the heavenly innocence of childhood begins to disappear.