Directions : Read the poem given below and answer the questions that follow by…
2021
Directions : Read the poem given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the correct/most appropriate options :
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
The theme of the poem is
- A.
the idea of death
- B.
the change of seasons
- C.
love
- D.
songs of the birds
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Identifying a poem's theme means naming the single governing idea that its extended metaphors and images work together to express across the whole poem — not a topic that is only mentioned in passing, and not a feeling introduced only in one line, but the idea the figurative language consistently builds toward.
The first quatrain compares the speaker to a time of year with 'yellow leaves, or none, or few' hanging on cold, wind-shaken boughs — an autumn image of decline.
The second quatrain compares the speaker to fading twilight overtaken by 'black night', explicitly named 'Death's second self that seals up all in rest'.
The third quatrain compares the speaker to a fire 'glowing... on the ashes of his youth', lying on a death-bed on which it will finally go out, consumed by the very fuel that once fed it.
The closing couplet states that perceiving this strengthens the addressee's love, precisely because what is loved must be left before long — love is presented as the addressee's response to recognising the speaker's approaching death, not as the subject the three central images describe.
'the change of seasons': autumn is only one of the three parallel vehicles (a dying year, a fading day, a dying fire) used to depict aging; the day and fire images carry the same idea with no seasonal reference at all, so the season itself cannot be the unifying subject.
'love': love is named only in the final two lines and is framed as an effect of recognising mortality ('makes thy love more strong'), not as what the three central metaphors describe.
'songs of the birds': this is a single descriptive phrase inside the first quatrain's imagery ('where late the sweet birds sang'), narrower than an idea that has to run across all three quatrains to count as the poem's theme.
Because all three metaphors — the dying year, the fading day, the dying fire — and the couplet's response to them converge on the same idea, the poem's unifying subject is the approach of death, matching 'the idea of death'.