Past And Present

Word Meanings:

1. Tis: Short from of it is
2. Laburnum: A small tree with racemes of golden flower
3. Morn: Short Form Of Morning
4. Robin: A European Bird
5. Slender : Thin

• Important Question / Answers: 

1. Who composed this poem?
Ans: Thomas Hood composed this poem.

2. What is the poem about?
 Ans: The poem is about the childhood life.

3. What does the poet remember in the first stanza?
Ans: In the first stanza, the poet remembers his childhood, the house where he was born and those beautiful days when sun rays came peeping through his window in the morning.

4. What does he wish in the first stanza?
Ans: In the first stanza, he wishes the night that his tiredness would go away when the night falls.

5. What does he remember in the second stanza?
Ans: In the second stanza, he remembers his childhood where he used to see and feel the beautiful colours of roses and lilies and the lilacs.

6. How does the poet describe his childhood in the third stanza?
Ans: In the third stanza, the poet describes his childhood showing the contrast experience of his past and present. He vividly remembers how he used to swing, enjoy the breeze and wind. In the same way, he was all energetic and high in spirit. But now, he does not have energy to lift his spirit. The water in the pool was cool and pleasant but now it is not cool enough to cool his fever.

7. Was the poet really closer to the heaven when he was a child? Why does he think so?
Ans: Yes, the poet was really closer to the heaven when he was child. He thinks so because the childhood life is very innocent stage in which there is no tension and risk of doing work.



General Summary for students poem:
Ans:

In this poem Thomas Hood seems to be expressing how he is looking back on to his past. This poem is the recollection of his childhood. Each stanza of the poem contrasts innocence with experience, the lost world of childhood, idealized by memory, with an adult world marked by regrets and a sense of loss. When people grow up they begin to wonder and think about things that happened during their youth. In the beginning, the poem has a happy feeling but the last few lines seem depressing.