NCERT Solutions For Class 11 English Hornbill The Voice of the Rain

Think it out

Question:- I. 1. There are two voices in the poem. Who do they belong to? Which lines indicate this?

Answer:- There are two voices in the poem, one of them belongs to the poet of the poem and the other to the rain. These are indicated in lines 1-2 and 3-9 respectively.

Question:- 2. What does the phrase “strange to tell” mean?

Answer:- The poet uses this phrase ‘strange to tell’ to express his surprise. It is a surprising how the rain speaks in human voice to the poet .

Question:- 3. There is a parallel drawn between rain and music. Which words indicate this? Explain the similarity between the two.

Answer:- The following phrases indicate the parallel between rain and music: “I am the Poem of Earth,”  ‘eternal I rise impalpable out of land and the bottomless sea’ ‘For song duly with love returns.’  Both come from a source, rise up, find fulfilment, travel around  and eventually return to the point of origin with love.

Question:- 4. How is the cyclic movement of rain brought out in the poem? Compare it with what you have learnt in science.

Answer:- 4. The poet says that rain drops in the form of water vapour rise up from the land and sea, then descend on the ground and dry land to wash it down, and thus return to their source. The poet explains the cyclic process in this way. This cyclical movement of rain which is explained here is exactly similiar to what we study in science.

Question:- 5. Why are the last two lines put within brackets?

Answer:- The last two lines are put within brackets because these words are neither said by the voice of the rain nor by the poet. They only contain a general observation made by the poet about the course of a song.

Question:- 6. List the pairs of opposites found in the poem.

Answer:- (a) Day, night

(b) Reck’d, unreck’d

(c) Rise, descend

(d) altogether changed — yet the same

Question: II. Notice the following sentence patterns.

1. And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower.

Answer:- I asked about the identity of the softly falling rain “Who are you?”.

2. I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain.

Answer:- The voice of the rain introduced itself as the Poem of Earth.

3. Eternal I rise

Answer:-  The voice of the rain described its upward movement to the sky as endless or eternal.

4. For song… duly with love returns

Rewrite the above sentences in prose.

Answer:–  The poet claims that, like the natural cycle of rain, a music begins in the poet’s heart, travels to reach others, and then returns to the poet with all due affection after serving its purpose (whether acknowledged or not).

Question: III. Look for some more poems on the rain and see how this one is different from them.

Answer:- Do it yourself.