Extract Based Questions: A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal - Class 9 PDF Download

Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.

Q1: A slumber did my spirit seal
I had no human fears.
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

(a) What was the poet’s state of mind when Lucy was alive?
Ans: When Lucy was alive the poet was in a state of spiritual peace as he did not even think about her aging or dying.

(b) What was the ‘human fear’ he did not have?
Ans: It blinded him to the reality that eventually all things that are born perish or die one day.

(c) Why did he not have this fear?
Ans: The poet could not imagine that she was a human being and subject to suffering and death.

(d) How does the poet imagine her to be, after death?
Ans: The poet imagines her to now be a part of nature.

Q2: A slumber did my spirit seal-
I had no human fears.
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

(a) Who does ‘she’ refer to?
Ans: The poet does not disclose in the poem the identity of the girl. But because the poem is one of the Lucy Poems, she refers to Lucy, the girl Wordsworth loved.

(b) What could she not feel?
Ans: She could not feel the touch of earthly years.

(c) Explain “the touch of earthly years”.
Ans: By “the touch of earthly years”, the poet means the ravages of time or the process of aging.

(d) Why does the poet say that his loved one is rolling round in the way of the earth?
Ans: The poet says that his beloved is a part of Nature she is also moving round with the earth.

Q3: No motion has she now, no force –
She neither hears nor sees,
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course
With rocks and stones and trees.

(a) What happened to the poet’s beloved?
Ans: The poet’s beloved was dead.

(b) Where is she now?
Ans: After her death she has become one with Nature.

(c) How does she become an inseparable part of nature?
Ans: She has become an integral part of nature as she is buried and has become one with the earth.

(d) Explain: she is in “earth’s diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees”?
Ans: She is now a participant in the daily routine of the earth and rolls with it along with the rocks and trees and other things of Nature.

Q4: No motion has she now, no force –
She neither hears nor sees,
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course
With rocks and stones and trees.

(a) What does the word ‘slumber’ refer to?
Ans: The word ‘slumber’ refers to a deep sleep. Here it refers to death.

(b) How will time not affect the poet’s beloved?
Ans: The poet’s beloved is dead and therefore has become immortal.

(c) ‘No motion has she now, no force.’ Why is ‘she’ motionless?
Ans: ‘She’ is the poet’s beloved who is no longer alive. Therefore she is motionless.

(d) What is the central theme of the poem?
Ans: The poet wants to convey the idea that though death separates our loved ones from us but they always remain around us in the form of nature.