Daffodils

by William Wordsworth

Answers for all the questions from the poetry ‘Daffodils’ included in the CHSE +2 book ‘Invitation to English – 1’.

Click here for stanza by stanza explanation of the poem ‘Daffodils’.

Think it out

1. When did the poet see the daffodils?
Answer – The poet chanced upon the beautiful yellow daffodils while sauntering along a lake side.

2. Where did the poet see the daffodils?
Answer – The cluster of daffodils swayed with the breeze along the lake and under the trees.

3. Fill in the blanks to describe the idea of stanza 1: The poet was – – – in the English Country side. He saw thousands of – – fluttering and dancing beneath – – and beside – – . The daffodils appeared to be – – in the strong breeze .
Answer – The idea of stanza 1: The poet was – – strolling- in the English Country side. He saw thousands of –yellow daffodils – fluttering and dancing beneath –the trees – and beside –a lake – . The daffodils appeared to be -swaying – in the strong breeze.

4. What does the poet compare the daffodils with?
Answer – The poet compares the daffodils with the twinkling stars in the milky way.

5. What resemblance does he find between the stars and the daffodils?
Answer – The bright yellow flowers shone and twinkled like the stars.

6. What does the poet say about the number of flowers?
Answer – The poet reckons that the flowers were humongous in numbers.

7. Where were the flowers?
Answer – The flowers were along the side of the bay.

Which of the two danced more sprightly – the waves or the daffodils?
Answer – The waves out-paced the daffodils in moving from side to side.

9. How does the poet feel while looking at the daffodils?
Answer – The poet is clearly overjoyed to see the daffodils. He feels ecstatic.

10. What happens to the poet when he lies on his couch?
Answer – When the poet lies on his sofa with a tired and jaded mind, the daffodils make their appearance before his inner eyes, and erase all signs of sorrow and gloom. They make him feel rejuvenated, joyous, and peaceful again.

11. Mention the two moods of the poet.
Answer – Pensive and ecstatic

12. What does the poet feel when he remembers the sight of the daffodils?
Answer- The poet feels overwhelmed by a sudden torrent of bliss, energy and joy.

13. When does the poet write the poem – beside or off the lake?
Answer – He wrote the poem when he is off the lake.

14. Do you find a rhyme scheme in the poem? The rhyming scheme of the first stanza is a b a b (a – ‘cloud’ and ‘crowd’; b ‘hills’ and ‘daffodils’) ,ending with a rhyming couplet cc (C – ‘trees’ and ‘breeze’). Is the rhyme scheme similar in other three stanzas or do you find any variation?
Answer – The rhyming scheme of the poem is ABABCC. So, it’s not similar.

15. How many times is the word “dance” repeated in this poem? In which line does it show the happiness and liveliness of the flowers?
Answer – The word ‘dance’ appears three times. In the last line, it shows the happiness and liveliness.

16. In which line does it create a sense of harmonious relationship between the daffodils and the waves?
Answer –

17. In which line does this harmonious relationship include the poet himself?
Answer – The lines are;
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

18. What figures of speech do you find in the poem?
Answer – Simile, Alliteration, Hyperbole, Personification,

19. ‘Simile’ is a figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things by using ‘like’, has’, etc. For example, in 1 wandered lonely as a cloud’, as the loneliness of the poet resembles the loneliness of the cloud that is floating high in the sky, the figure of speech used is a simile. What other example of a simile do you find in the poem?
Answer – It is ‘I wondered lonely as a cloud.’.

20. ‘Metaphor’ is a figure of speech that makes an implicit comparison between two unlike things. In ‘What wealth the show to me had brought, the poet imagines the happiness brought to him by the beautiful scene of the flowers as “wealth”. Does he use a metaphor here?
Answer – ‘Wealth’ has been used as a metaphor to describe the great value and benefit the sights of the daffodils lying dormant in his eyes yielded to him.

21. “Ten thousand saw I at a glance” – is it an exaggeration? Will you call it a ‘hyperbole”?
Answer – No, it points to the vast numbers of daffodils that the poet saw. He couldn’t have counted them, so he used ‘Ten thousand’. It’s a hyperbole.

22. What figure of speech does the poet use in “They stretched in never-ending line.”?
Answer – Hyperbole