Grade 11 Sight Exam April 2015 30 marks Name: ___Eric Mogilner

_________________________
McLoughlin

Section A

Read the following poem carefully and write your response to the poem using the questions
below.
Be concise and pay attention to spelling, grammar and argumentation. Your responses to each
question should be no longer than half a page double-spaced.

1. What are some of the things Time lets the speaker of the poem do in Stanza 1? 4
hail and climb, once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves, honoured among
wagonsi I was prince of the apple towns
2. In Line 24, the poet refers to the simple light. What do you think he means by this? 4
I think simple light means the light coming from the sun because he says the sun grew round
that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light, therefore he means the
simple light as in the sun

3. The poet refers to lots of colours in the poem. Chose three colours and write about
why you think he refers to them. (What they represent) 6
Green- I think he refers green to youth because plants that are green are seen to be youthful, so
he is applying it to himself as a young child
Golden- I think he refers golden to being pure and good because gold is seen as a pure metal
White- I think he refers to white to being plain like the plainness of this setting being just a hill
with nature, a very plain environment
4. What is the antecedent of his in line 20? 2
Time
5. In line 30, what does the speaker mean when he refers to the sun being born over
and over? 4
Going around the earth over and over again.
6. What is the poems underlying message or theme? Do you agree with it? Explain. 5
The underlying message of the poem Fern Hill is that time is easy on the young, but hard on the
old, and it is best to remember your childhood so when your in my chains like the sea you can
still sing through your young memories, this theme is evident by: Oh as I was young and easy in
the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying/ Though I sang in my chains like the
sea.
20 marks
Section B

1. Identify 2 rhetorical devices in the poem and write briefly about how they connect to
the central meaning of the poem. 5
Simile: once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves connects to the theme of the
poem by the fact the when he was young he had the trees and leaves, but later in the poem
now that time has passed he lost the trees and leaves, this similie connects his youthfulness
to his happiness/ success.
Personification: Time held me green and dying connects to the theme of the poem by
giving time a human quality of holding something, and that something is him, it is making
him die but green because of his memories as a child, this connects to the theme of growing
older yet remembering your happy childhood memories as hes being held green, yet dyig
because time is slowly killing him naturally.
2. Identify 2 auditory techniques and write about how they connect to the central
meaning of the poem. 5
Alliteration: green and golden connects to the theme of the poem by how being young is
also like being pure and happy, using alliteration of the gs connects the two as being
together that being young is also like being pure, as in the theme happiness and the good
times come from being a child.
Consonance: below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves connects to the theme of the
poem by highlighting this lines importance by repeating ls throughout bringing this to the
readers attention, and it highlights the theme of youth with being successful and happy,
also the ls paint a clear picture of someone being like a lord have the trees and leaves.
10 marks

FERN HILL by Dylan Thomas

1 Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs branches
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry, small wooded valley
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes, best times
ii
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves like a lord
Trail with daisies and barley
9 Down the rivers of the windfalliii light.

10 And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
 Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsmaniv, the calves
Sang to my hornv, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
18 In the pebbles of the holy streams.

19 And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all male chicken
Shining, it was Adamvi and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm early
childhood
Out of the whinnyingvii green stable
27 On to the fields of praise.

28 And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

happy
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
36 Follow him out of grace.

37 Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, crowded
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
45 Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
i
Horse-drawn wagons used on the farm for various purposes including bringing in hay from the fields

ii
Horse-drawn wagons used on the farm for various purposes including bringing in hay from the fields

iii
Something blown down by the wind, as fruit.

iv
Huntsman: one who hunts (foxes, deer, birds etc); Herdsman: one who looks after herds of cattle.

v
The horn blown by the leader of the hunt to alert the other huntsmen as to where the animal that is being hunted is.

vi
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman.

vii
Sound a horse makes.