Submitted BY: Abdul Wahid (7th, B)

Roll. No: 18552

Submitted TO: Ma’am Faiza Khokhar

Stanza 1
I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes – 
I wonder if It weighs like Mine – 
Or has an Easier size.
Stanza2
I wonder if They bore it long – 
Or did it just begin – 
I could not tell the Date of Mine – 
It feels so old a pain – 
Stanza3
I wonder if it hurts to live – 
And if They have to try – 
And whether – could They choose between – 
It would not be – to die – 
Stanza4
I note that Some – gone patient long – 
At length, renew their smile – 
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil – 
Stanza5
I wonder if when Years have piled – 
Some Thousands – on the Harm – 
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm – 
Stanza6
Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve – 
Enlightened to a larger Pain – 
In Contrast with the Love – 
Stanza7
The Grieved – are many – I am told – 
There is the various Cause – 
Death – is but one – and comes but once – 
And only nails the eyes – 
Stanza8
There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold – 
A sort they call "Despair" – 
There's Banishment from native Eyes – 
In sight of Native Air – 
Stanza9
And though I may not guess the kind – 
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary – 
Stanza10
To note the fashions – of the Cross – 
And how they're mostly worn – 
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own –

Selection Restriction Rule Violation or Collocation: It is the deviation from the standard use
of language, in which a poet or writer uses words for objects which is not permissible generally;
sometimes he/she does it by using personification, or by some other ways. For example, in this
poem, the poetess uses words in the first stanza: “measure every grief” “I meet”, “weighs”,
“easier size”. So, she personifies grief, giving attributes of human to nonliving grief, which is
not linguistically permissible. Similarly, she uses “die” for grief in third stanza, “renew their
smile” in forth stanza, and “nails the eyes” for death in seventh stanza. In addition to it, she uses
the word “native air” in eighth stanza. Lastly, she uses “piercing comfort” in ninth stanza, and
“fashions of the cross” in last stanza. Therefore, they all are deviations from the standard way of
using it, because, we know that grief cannot be measured, neither we can meet grief physically.
Similarly, grief bears no size and weight, nor it dies physically. In the same manner, death never
nails eyes, smile cannot be renewed, air has not the property of being native, and cross possesses
no fashions. Hence, the poetess has violated the collocation rule.
Transformational rule violation: it is the violation of not following the standard way of a
sentence, or to be precise, by having the concept of Noam Chomsky’s TGG, making sentence
with different surface structures, by violating the very deep structure rules, either by reordering,
copying, deletion or by addition. For example, the poetess deletes the pronoun “it” in the last
line of first stanza, which she must have used it while referring to grief. Similarly, she violates
this rule by reordering the words “renew their smile” instead of “their smile renews” in the
fourth stanza. In addition to it, she reorders the words “Death-is but one” instead of “but one is
death”. Then she goes on by writing “a piercing comfort, it affords” instead of “it affords, a
piercing comfort”.
Category rule violation: This violation includes using one category of words instead of other,
for instance, using noun in place of verb, adjective, etc. and vice versa. For example, in this
poem the poetess uses “grieved” as a noun in seventh stanza, which is verb by grammar.
Similarly, she uses “gone” as adjective in fourth stanza, which, too, is verb by lexical category.
Sub-category rule violation: This type of violation includes violating the sub categories inside a
border category, for example, writing proper noun instead of common noun etc. For instance, the
poetess uses “Mine” instead of me. This is violation, because objective first personal pronoun is
me, while she uses possessive pronoun instead of objective first person pronoun.