31. Unseen Poem Comprehension for Class 8

MY PARENTS

MY PARENTS

My parents kept me from children who were rough
And who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.
Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street
And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.
I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron
And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.
I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys
Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.
They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges
Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud
And I looked another way, pretending to smile,
I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.

1.Complete the following sentences briefly :

(a) The children are called rough children because _________ .

(b) ‘They ran in the streets and climbed …’ indicates _________ .

(c) ‘Their muscles like iron’ is an example of _________ . 

(d) The boys copied  _________ .

(e) To irritate the narrator, they  _________ .

(f) The line/sentence which shows that the narrator wished to befriend the rough children is

_________ .

2. Find words from the lines 6-10 which mean the same as :

(a) failed to use the sound/s/and/z/correctly

(b) bending/twisting easily

 Answers

1.(a) they spoke rudely and wore rags

(b) that they were free spirits

(c) simile                                                               

(d) the narrator’s lisp behind him on the road

(e) threw mud/imitated the narrator’s  

 (f)‘pretending to smile I longed to forgive them’

2.(a) lisp

 (b) lithe

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