16.

THE VANISHING VILLAGE

R.S. Thomas
Scarcely a street,too few houses
To merit the little,just a way between
The one tavern and the one shop
That leads nowhere and fails at the top
Of the shot hill,eaten away
By long erosion of the green tide
Of grass creeping perpetually nearer
This last outpost of time past.

So little happens, the black do

Cracking his fleas in the hot sun
Is history. Yet the girl who crosses
From door to door moves to a scale
Beyond the bland day s'  two dimensions.

Stay,then,village,for round you spin

On slow axis a world as vast
And meaningful as any poised
By great Plato s' solitary mind.

Thomas is a Welsh poet who was born in Wales in 1903.He got his early education at a
local school and later on joined a seminary for becoming a priest In the poem, “The vanishing
Village”, the poet laments over the rapid decline of the villages. It is said that the world is
turning fast into a Global Village without villages. The unchecked, unabated large scale
migration towards cities goes on worldwide. The poet does not like it. He believes in the theory
of Plato that the village is the basic unit of the world. In the poem, the poet has projected a
gloomy picture of a village that is on its way to destruction. There are a few houses in the
village. It has only one street that is leading nowhere and is eaten away by the tide of green
grass. It means that the village is disconnected from the rest of the world. The village contains
the population equal to none, so there is little activity in it. There is only one shop and one inn in
the village. A black dog that is sitting in the hot sun and cracking its fleas is the only history. The
concept of time and space is being vanished in the village. The girl moving from one door to
another is a ray of hope. The poem is based on the Plato s’ theory that the village is the basic unit
of this world. If one wants to save the world, one must save the village. Large-scale immigration
to the cities must be checked.
17. WHEN I HAVE FEARS
John Keats
John Keats was born in 1795 and died in 1821.He is one of the greatest English romantics poets.
His early poem including ‘Endymion’ had to face severe criticism. His second volume appeared
in 1820 and this contains his best work including the great ode. The sonnet, “ When I Fears “, is
of great significance when we bear in mind the fact that Keats died at a very young age of
twenty-six years old. The theme of the sonnets is the fears of the poet that he would die in a
young age before the fulfillment of his poetic potent9ial.His first fear is that he may die soon.
The poet was suffering from T.B and at that time it was a very fatal disease. So, his this fear
came true when he died at the ripe age of twenty six. His second fear was that he will not
become a famous poet in his life. The reality is totally in favor of this fear in the mind of the
poet. When he started writing poetry, he had to face a severe criticism, so he was not able to get
the expected fame. In case of his love he remained unsuccessful. He was in love with a beautiful
woman but his love was one sided and unreflecting as that woman was in love with another
fellow. Keats was a great lover of beauty. He was of the view, A thing of beauty is a joy
forever,” But in his life span Keats did not relish the taste of beauty. Rejected from every sphere
of life, he is standing alone on the shore of the world and is thinking that love and fame or
nothing in this world

18. KUBLLA KHAN

S.T. Coleridge
Coleridge is a world famous poet. Just as Keats shows his identity in beauty, Coleridge shows his
identity in supernaturalism. His world famous poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and
“Christable” are the best examples of Coleridge s’ supernaturalism. In this poem, he speaks of
the grandeur of Kubla Khan s’ palace. The poet takes the flight in his imagination and tries to
build the palace as a rare device. The poem has been written under the influence of opium. Under
the effect of this medicine he dreamed of the place of Kubla Khan a Mongol emperor In the
poem the poet is not discussing about kubla khan but of his palace. Kubla khan ordered to build a
palace in Xanadu where the sacred river Alph flowed. It was a site of superb beauty. It was a
place as enchanted as a place that is haunted by a woman wailing for her demon lover. There was
a romantic chasm which went obliquely down to the slope of green hill covered with cedarn
trees. Out of this chasm, there gushed out a great fountain vaulting out stones with water. The
river passed through the enchanted land for five miles before falling into the sea..The palace was
built in the fertile ground of ten miles area. The reflection of the domes of the palace floated mid
in the mid of the sacred river. Once the poet saw a maiden who was singing of mount Abora .She
was an Abyssinian girl. The poet was much impressed by the symphony of her song. The poet
desires to revive the song of that girl as with the help of that song he wants to rebuild the palace
of Kubla Khan in his imagination. In the end , the poet has labeled Kubla khan as a supernatural
character who forces the seers to close their eyes with holy dread as he has been fed with
heavenly food.

19. Hawks Monologue by Ted Hughes:

Reference
These lines have been taken from the poem “Hawks Monologue" by Ted Hughes.

Context:

Ted Hughes is a famous English poet. Death, destruction, violence and savagery loom large in
his poetry. The poem Hawk’s Monologue is a speech of a hawk. Hawk thinks that he was a
matchless bird in creation. However, all powerful often forget that their limited power lies in the
seeds of death and destruction.

 Stanza # 1
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed,
Inaction, no falsifying dream,
Between my hooked head and hooked feet,
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat
 EXPLAINATION
Ted Hughes, using the persona of a wild bird, discusses the psychology and cruel nature of the
power drunk. A man in power is on top of all affairs. He says his "eyes are closed". He is
indifferent. He is careless. He is playing the game of life even while dreaming, called "rehearse"
to kill.
  Stanza # 2
The convenience of the high trees,
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray,
Are of advantage to me:
And the earth's face upward for my inspection
  EXPLAINATION:
 Nature or Fate, has provided him the "convenience of high trees"; trees resemble high status and
position. Things are favourable for him to rule. He claims the earth is has opened it for him to
prey. All is made for him. Power often corrupts man. He is very proud.
  Stanza #3
My feet are locked upon the rough bark,
It took the whole of Creation,
To produce my foot, my each feather;
Now I hold Creation in my foot.
  EXPLAINATION-
He believes his "feet are locked upon" the position he holds. No one can remove him. He is the
most important among creation. He is the most superior. Therefore, ironically, he seems right in
saying "now I hold creation in my foot".

 Stanza # 4
  Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly,
I kill where I please because it is all mine,
There is no sophistry in my body;
My manners are tearing off heads .
  EXPLAINATION;
 He is contemptuous of the creation except himself. He deems himself all-powerful. He will prey
where he pleases. His body is designed for the tasks of cruelty.
He is neither weak nor gentle. He is a warrior and smooth decision maker.

 Stanza # 5

.The allotment of death,

For the one path of my flight is direct,
Through the bones of the living,
No arguments assert my
  EXPLAINATION..
"Allotment of death" is his right that he may pierce the bones of the living. Nobody can argue
over his right. His superior position and the power he holds are backed up by some design of
nature.
History is evident that man becomes blind to his faults and errors while in power. He holds
people in contempt and he crushes the rules and regulations under his feet. He is above law.
  Stanza # 6
The sun is behind me,
Nothing has changed since I began,
My eye has permitted no change,
I am going to keep things like this
EXPLAINATION,
He has a firm belief that the source of life and power "is behind" him. His power remains
unchallenged since he began. He has not permitted any change. Captured in the illusion of his
pride and power, he is confident that he is "going to keep things like this".
The Hawk says that his eyes do not allow any change. He claims that he is going to keep things
as they are. He will not allow anyone to reduce or minimize his powers. The hawk says that he
enjoys absolute power and authority. In his solitary domain, there is no change. His act
of hunting and plundering would continue as usual. He would not permit any change in them.

20. Say this city has Ten Million souls

W.H Audens.
Auden was born in 1907 and was educated at Oxford. He moved to the U.S in 1939 and became
an American citizen.
W.H Auden in this touching poem captures the sense of alienation and isolation of outsiders
coming to a country not their own. Particularly, the poet is talking about the German Jews who
fled their country afraid of Hitler s’ persecutions.
The passport is used as a symbol of personal identity, yet it is meaningless document that
excludes any human considerations, the only reality is that the possession of the passport is not
the fact of being alive. The sense of deprivation is remarkably conveyed through the image of
pampered dog, the fish that swim freely and the birds, which sing in the woods-the pity is that
the human life falls beneath the animal level.
Man is imprisoned in thousand shackles of race, colour and creed, of nationality, of passports.
These immigrants become hunted, the most unwanted and are being tracked by the soldiers and
for them all doors and windows are closed. There is no one who can hear and solve their basic
problems.
 This poem reflects the plight and bad condition of the German Jews who fled from Germany to
ward off the atrocities of Adolf Hitler. However, they were not sure that they would face the
same problems in the country where they are going to settle.
In America, their basic human rights are not being recognized. They are being treated worse than
animal level. They have no passports and are considered dead in official language. There the
voice of Hitler on radio terrifies them. The native politicians politicize this issue in order to get
fame and to get some votes.
In that, country the fish and birds are free and dogs are looked after well but basics human rights
are not being given. The city is very big having thousand storied buildings but there is not a
small place for German Jews who are only confined to their camps in the open areas in the
intense weather.
This poem is a severe criticism on the so-called civilized American society. They raise the
slogans of giving basics human rights but this law does not apply at their own country. This story
is a criticism on the urban life. Everybody is moving to and trying to settle in the big cities but in
administrative point of view, it becomes very difficult to provide them the necessities of life.

21. Politics
W.B Yeats
Politics
'In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.'
                                                                                                  THOMAS MANN.
How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics,
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has both read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.

In the poem, there are many opposites that appear to challenge each other: age and youth,
intellect and emotion, and male and female. The implication that the young are in each other's
arms, to Nicholas Meihuizen, highlights the poet's age and its adverse relationship to the youth of
the poem's lovers. As the poet speaks of turning his inability to turn his "attention" from "that
girl standing there" to "politics", the poet presents the battle of intellect and emotion, a battle
which emotion wins in the poem. Likewise, Meihuizen argues that the poem presents sexual
longing in the final line as the poem ends with the combination of the male and female in sexual
union.[5]
The conflict between the girl and the political surroundings mentioned in the text is, according to
critic Charles Ferrall, an extension of a correspondence Yeats had with Olivia Shakespeare in
which Yeats suggests that there is a relationship between Fascism and aesthetics. While Yeats
never embraces Fascism the way that Ezra Pound did, the theme of the relationship between art
and politics appears to focus heavily on that particular form of government as it was the
prevailing political force in two of the three countries mentioned in the poem.[6] However, Yeats
was consistently elusive on political matters throughout his literary career and carefully avoids
taking a position in "Politics". Michael Bell, in his essay "W.B. Yeats: ‘In Dreams Begin
Responsibilities' suggests that in "Politics", Yeats "treads a dubious line between honesty to
mood and a would-be seductive fecklessness".
The retreat from the political world suggested by the poem's title and carried out throughout the
text of the poem also implies that the poet is inclined to create what Glenn Willmott calls a
"narcissistic paradise". According to Willmott, Yeats's poems often move from the world of
social interaction to a place where the individual finds seclusion, as is also the case in
the pastoral Yeats's earlier poems "The Lake Isle of Innisfree, "The Song of the Happy
Shepherd", and "The Sad Shepherd". All of the poems create a "utopia" in which the poet finds
relief from public life by withdrawing from social spheres and entering into a mythical setting,
yet "Politics" is unique in that it lacks the pastoral qualities of the earlier works and finds solitude
in a different time rather than a different place.

22. Snake
D.H Lawrence
The poem is about the ever-changing feelings and emotions of the poet on seeing a snake at his
water trough. Lawrence is a great lover and admirer of the objects of nature. So this natural
instinct of poetry compelled him to compose a beautiful poem on a very common and dangerous
object of nature- Snake. The poet is much impressed by the beauty of snake. He welcomes it as
an honourable guest at his home.
Throughout the poem, his reactions and feelings are vacillating. Firstly, he is honoured and
pleased on seeing a snake at his water trough. He let the snake drink water first and as a second
comer he is waiting. Soon his voice of accursed human education informs him that this snake is
very venomous (poisonous) it must be killed. The poet is confused, as he still likes the snake. His
voice of education dominates him and he picks up a clumsy log and throws it onto the snake. The
snake resumes his journey and disappeared. Now the poet s’ feeling and reaction again changes
and he starts repenting. He compares the snake with a king- a king in exile that has gone under
world to resume his kingship. He compares his snake with a god and with Albatross. It is a bird
mentioned in Coleridge s’ most famous poem. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In which the
sailor kills the Albatross and he receives a series of misfortunes because of his bad act. In the
same way, the snake for the writer is a symbol of good luck but he misses this chance. The poet
becomes remorseful and wants to compensate his bad act.
1.      Discuss the main theme of the poem ‘Snake’?

2.      The poet feels repentant after his encounter with snake. Why?