Name: Chanda.

G Subject : English
Grade: 6 Sec: PRWS :
Roll No. - Indian International School Date : 25/08/2020

Answer key
Poem- 6 The Power of Music

B. Answer the questions with reference to context.

1. a. Bhisma Lochan Sharma is being referred to as ‘he’ here.

b. Bhisma’s song can be heard with the onset of summer on hills and plains from Delhi
down to Burma.

c. As soon as people hear his song, they start leaving in a dazed condition. Some of them
are also trampled in the panicked rout that ensues while others become weak, sickly
and pale. No, they are not really going to die because of the song, even though they do
feel sickly or dazed. This is an exaggeration on the part of the poet to show how bad
Bhisma’s singing was.

2. a. Bhisma’s singing is being referred to here as the ‘blare’.

b. The horses which have fallen on the roadsideare the ‘wretched brutes’ here. On
hearing the ‘blare’, they whine and stare with their feet up in the air and look around in
a confused manner.

c. The bullocks, fish and flies are also affected by the ‘blare’.

3. a. The people, animals, trees and surroundings were so disturbed by Bhisma’s terrible
singing that his silence was treated as a ‘golden gift’ to the world because it returned
their sanity which was as valuable as gold to them.

b. The literary device used in these lines is alliteration, where the ‘g’ sound is repeated
in consecutive words – ‘golden gift’. Two other instances of alliteration in the poem are
‘welkin weeps’ and ‘mighty mansions’.
c. Bhisma Lochan finally fell silent when a wise billy goat lowered his horns and
bellowing, charged at him violently, knocking him down.

Life Skills and Values :

1. Bhisma Lochan Sharma was a bad singer. Whenever he sang people panicked and ran,
or became pale and sickly. They pleaded with him to stop singing. His songs affected
trees and mansions, not sparing the fish in the water or the tiny flies in the sky. The sky
itself seemed to weep, listening to his terrible singing.

2. There are several situations described by the poet which are absurd or not possible in
real life, said to be caused by Bhisma’s singing. Some of them are: • Bullock carts are
overturned and horses line the roadside. • The brutes whine and stare with their feet in
the air. • Fishes dive below the lake and flies turn turtle in air. • Trees collapse and
shake. • The sky starts weeping and huge mansions tumble