Class – VI
Subject – English Text
The Echoing Green
Poem
Lesson Notes
Introduction
The poem The Echoing Green by William Blake is written in the appreciation of nature in simple terms. However, if we go deep into it, we will find the theme of life and death in the world. The poem is told by a young child who is playing in the “Echoing Green” park. The poem has been divided into three stanzas which if we go deep, depict the three stages of life. Each stanza is divided into 10 lines and the rhyme scheme is AABB. Another interesting thing worth noticing is that the first two stanzas end in “On the Echoing Green” while the final stanza ends in “On the darkening Green”. We will discuss this in the end.
Summary
The sun rises on a green field where birds sing and children play. As they play, “Old John with white hair” and other elderly observers laugh at their antics and remember a time when they were young, energetic, and playful. Eventually the little ones grow tired and the sun begins to set. The children gather back to their mothers and prepare for a night’s rest.
Video Link https://youtu.be/KayrlyOIKh4
About the poet
William Blake (1757 – 1827) lived in London for all but three years of his life. Blake was a poet, painter and printmaker. He believed in equality and wrote poetry that could be understood by everyone.
Words to know
Green – an area of grass, especially in the middle of a town or village
Skylark – a small bird that sings while it flies high up in the sky
Thrush – a bird with a brown back and brown spots on its chest
Comprehension
1. Answer the following questions : a. What time of day is it at the beginning of the poem?
Answer - It is dawn when the poem begins. b. Which words from the first stanza create a cheerful mood?
Answer - happy, merry c. In the second stanza, what are the older people doing? And what does it make them remember?
Answer - In the second stanza, the older people sit and watch the children play and they laugh away their cares. It reminds them of their youth when they enjoyed themselves at the ‘Echoing Green.’ d. In the final stanza, what time of day it is?
Answer - It is dusk when the poem ends.
e. In the final stanza, what happens to the children?
Answer - By the time the poem ends, the children are extremely tired and ready to go home to bed.
f. In the final stanza, the poet creates an interesting image by com paring the mother and her children to a type of animal. What animals are they compared to? What are they doing? What is the effect of using this comparison?
Answer - In the last paragraph, the poet compares a mother and her child to a bird and its young one. Just as young birds want to return to their nests at the end of a tiring day, children also want to return home to their beds and their parents.
g. Make a list of the animals mentioned in the poem.
Answer - skylark; thrush; birds
h. Make a list of sounds mentioned in the poem. Which stanza doesn’t have any sounds mentioned in it?
Answer - bells ring; sing louder; bells’ cheerful sound; laugh away
The last paragraph does not have any sounds.
i. What do you notice about the last line of each stanza? Say how they are similar and how they are different.
Answer - The last line of each stanza refers to the Echoing Green and so they are similar. They are different as they refer to varying time points in one’s life from youth to old age.
J How does the difference in the last lines affect the mood of the end of the poem? Answer - The difference in the last lines makes the mood of the poem somber at the end. When the poem begins there is a note of hope and opening while the last lines lead to a sense of closure and an ending.
2. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?
Answer - The rhyme scheme of the poem is aa bb cc dd...
Working with words
Exercise 2. and 3.
dawdle — to take a long time to do something or go somewhere hobble — to walk with difficulty, especially because one’s feet or legs hurt
limp — lacking strength or energy
march — to walk with stiff regular steps like a soldier pace — the speed at which somebody or something walks, runs or moves plod — to walk slowly and laboriously with heavy steps
ramble — to walk for pleasure across the countryside
roam — to walk or travel around an area without purpose shuffle — to walk slowly without lifting one’s feet completely off the ground slouch — to stand, sit or move droopingly and lazily, often with shoulders and head bent forward stride — to walk with long steps
stroll — to walk somewhere in a leisurely way strut — to walk in a proud way to show that one thinks one is important toddle — to walk like a small child with short, tottering steps trudge — to walk laboriously and wearily because one is tired or carrying something heavy waddle – to walk with short steps, swinging from side to side
Punctuation
4. Rewrite the following sentences putting in commas.
a. In his shop he sells nuts, bolts, screws, pins and paper.
b. During the holidays he visited his brother, his uncle, his father’s friend, his grandfather and his grandmother.
c. The leaf floated along in the current, whirled round and round, twisted over, stopped for a brief moment, and then disappeared.
d. The bells on the tree, streamers of every colour hanging from the ceiling, balloons of all shapes, a large star, and millions of sparkling lights, completed the decoration in the hall.
Learning about Language (Pages 58–59)
Suffixes
1. Add the suffixes –ing and –ed to the following verbs. laughing/laughed
stopping/stopped hitting
boxing/boxed
catching
thinking fixing/ fixed running planning/planned boiling/boiled flattening / flattened posting/posted flipping/flipped
shipping/shipped
joining/joined sitting
paying
chatting/chatted
placing/placed
trapping/trapped
Homework
1. Write eight lines of the poem, word meanings and question answers in notebook. 2. Do exercise 1 and 5 in rough copy.