A Night with a Wolf (Poem)

Word Meanings
1. belated: delayed or late
2. props: a beam used as a temporary support
3. rafter: a beam forming the internal framework of a roof

A. Answer these questions.

1. Whom is the speaker talking to? How can you tell?
Ans: The speaker is talking to his little son or daughter. We can
tell this because in the first line he says ‘Little one come to my
knee’.
2. How is the weather condition outside?
Ans: The rain was pouring over the roofs in the pitch dark night
and the winds were roaring.
3. What payment does the poet want and for what?
Ans: The payment the poet wants are kisses from the little one
in return for telling a story.
4. Where did the poet take shelter and why?
Ans: The poet took shelter near a fir with thick set boughs and a
sheltering rock behind it because it was raining heavily and the
winds were roaring.
5. Who was his companion during the storm?
Ans: The wolf was his companion during the storm.
6. Which words tell us that a fierce wind was blowing that
night?
Ans: The words that tells us that fierce wind was blowing that
night are ‘winds in the woods a-roaring’.
7. What happened in the morning?
Ans: In the morning both the wolf as well as the poet went
from their hiding place forth in the wild wet morning.
B. Answer the following with reference to the context.
1. The rain and the night together
Came down , and the wind came after,
Bending the props of the pine tree roof
And snapping many a rafter.
a) Who is the speaker?
Ans: The speaker is the poet himself.
b) What is the speaker describing and to whom?
Ans: The speaker is describing about the stormy night in which
he was travelling and he is describing this to his little one.
c) What happened immediately after this?
Ans: The poet was creeping along in the darkness, stunned and
bruised and blinded. He crept to a fir with a thick set of boughs
and a sheltering rock behind it.
2. There, from the blowing and the raining,
Crouching I sought to hide me;
Something rustled , two green eye shone,
a) Which place does the speaker mean by ‘There’?
Ans: By ‘There’ the speaker means the place where he took
shelter in the stormy night.
b) Why did the speaker want to hide and from whom?
Ans: The speaker wanted to hide from the stormy wind .
c) Whom did the ‘green eyes' belong to?
Ans: The ‘green eyes’ belonged to a wolf.
3. His wet fur pressed against me;
Each of us warmed the other;
Each of us felt in the stormy dark
That beast and man were brother.
a) Who are the two referred to in these lines?
Ans: The two referred to in these lines are the poet and the
wolf.
b) Where were they at this point of time?
Ans: They were near a fir tree with a thick boughs at this point
of time.
c) What was it that had brought them together?
Ans: The stormy windy night had brought them together.
d) How were they brothers?
Ans: They were brothers in the sense that they both comforted
each other in the dark stormy night.