Read the poem given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting…
2023
Read the poem given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the correct/most appropriate option.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
The example of the sun is given to :
- A.
describe the glory of his light.
- B.
describe the fast passage of time.
- C.
show his warmth.
- D.
warn of his setting.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
In a poem, when a specific example or image is developed across an entire stanza, its role is to make the poem's larger argument concrete, not merely to decorate the scene. What that example is ‘about’ is decided by which detail the lines actually stress — not by the object's other real-world qualities that go unmentioned.
This poem's theme, stated from its opening lines, is that time is short and must be used before it runs out: ‘this same flower that smiles today / Tomorrow will be dying.’ The sun stanza develops a second image of the same idea. Its key lines are: ‘The higher he’s a-getting, / The sooner will his race be run, / And nearer he’s to setting.’ These lines pair how high the sun climbs with how soon its whole daily course is completed — the higher it climbs, the sooner its race is run and the nearer it comes to setting. That correlation — a higher climb matched by an earlier close of the sun's course — is the whole point of the example: it dramatises how quickly a lifetime runs its course, reinforcing the poem's call to act ‘while ye may.’
The closing stanza confirms this reading by drawing the identical lesson from the images that came before it: ‘Then be not coy, but use your time… For having lost but once your prime, / You may forever tarry.’ Both the rosebud that blooms only for a day and the sun whose course, once run, ends in setting exist to press home one point — time passes fast and, once lost, is not recovered.
Why the other readings do not fit the stanza:
describe the glory of his light — the sun is called the ‘glorious lamp of heaven’ only in the opening phrase; the comparison itself is carried by the two lines straight after it, which this reading does not engage with.
show his warmth — heat or warmth does not appear anywhere in this stanza's vocabulary; this reading supplies a quality the lines never raise.
warn of his setting — this treats the setting as a stand-alone caution, but the setting is only the second half of a two-part construction anchored to the sun's climb, which this reading does not address.
So the sun's daily course — climbing high only to have its race run all the sooner — is used to describe the fast passage of time.