Class 9 English Chapter 15: Words

The poem's central distinction. Words that reach the head are understood; words that touch the heart are felt. A great many can do the first and fail at the second.

A metaphor for the heart: always travelling, always some distance from what it seeks. It is the image that explains why words are needed at all.

Called upon when it actually matters. Words may be plentiful in ordinary hours and useless in the hour that counts.

Display all the way down, with nothing underneath it. The plant is not bare — it is covered in flowers, and that is precisely the trouble.

A rhyme scheme in which only the second and fourth lines of each stanza chime. It carries the argument steadily without drawing attention to the rhyme.

Words are said to be like summer birds, which makes it a simile. The comparison holds in three ways: summer birds arrive, they are lovely while they are there, and they go when the season turns. What they leave behind is empty air — not a loss and not a ruin, but simply nothing. It establishes the poem's first and mildest complaint about words, that they do no injury at all and merely fail to remain. The stronger charges come later.

It is a metaphor rather than a simile, since the line says the heart is a pilgrim. A pilgrim is somebody permanently travelling towards something not yet reached, so the image explains why words are wanted at all: a heart in that condition needs something from outside itself. The stanza then turns on the phrase when it needs, which is easily passed over and is the hinge of the argument. Words are not being called worthless in general — they are found worth as little as weeds exactly when they are required, which is worse than being worthless always.

Because it prevents the poem from being a complaint about language. A little said, and truly said, can impart deeper joy than hosts of words — so words themselves are not the difficulty; too many of them are, and untrue ones. The stanza also supplies the distinction on which everything else rests, between words that reach the head and words that touch the heart. A great many can be understood; very few are felt, and nothing about the first guarantees the second.

The hyperbole is that the world might hold a feast if words could satisfy the chest — a deliberate exaggeration, since nobody supposes the planet would sit down to dinner. What it measures is the scale of what is being lost. If words genuinely satisfied, the change would not be small or private but universal and immediate, because everybody has words and everybody needs satisfying. The size of the imagined feast is therefore the size of the failure, and the stanza's other phrases sharpen it: summoned to the test means called upon when it matters, and satisfy the least means worst of everything one might turn to.

It makes a gaudy show — showy in a cheap way — and it is all blossom to the root, meaning display at every level with nothing underneath, yet its poor nature cannot grow one particle of fruit. The failure is total and it is concealed. It is the right image to end on because it is the only comparison in the poem in which the thing actively looks like what it is not. The summer birds merely left, and the weeds were merely worthless; this plant deceives. That is the real charge against empty words — they do not announce their emptiness, but arrive in bloom.

Only the second and fourth lines of each stanza chime, which makes the scheme ABCB. The pairs are care and air, needs and weeds, impart and heart, cheer and dear, feast and least, and show and grow. It suits the poem because a rhyme on every line would make a poem about the emptiness of fine language sound like fine language. That would undercut its own argument. Rhyming twice a stanza keeps the movement steady and the attention on the claim being made rather than on the sound being made, so the form agrees with the content.

Stanza 1. The poem opens with a condition it immediately withdraws: could words content the heart, it would carry less. Words are then compared to summer birds — a simile — which arrive, are lovely while they stay, and go when the season turns, leaving but empty air. This is the mildest of the poem's charges: words do no injury, they merely fail to remain.

Stanza 2. The heart is called a pilgrim upon earth, which is a metaphor, and it explains why words are wanted at all — a pilgrim is permanently travelling towards something not yet reached. Words are then found worth as little as weeds, which grow unplanted, grow abundantly and are worth nothing to the gardener. The crucial phrase is when it needs: the failure is dated to the moment of need, which is worse than a failure at any other time.

Stanza 3. The turn. A little said, and truly said, can impart deeper joy than armies of words that get as far as the head and never reach the heart. Three things happen at once here: the poem's target is revealed to be quantity rather than language; truth is made as necessary a condition as brevity; and the head-against-heart distinction is supplied, on which everything else rests.

Stanza 4. The voice that makes its bright way into a lonely house has usually the least to say — and how precious that little is! The poem now has a person alone in a house and somebody arriving — the idea has become a situation — and the first exclamation mark arrives, carrying admiration.

Stanza 5. The opening condition returns almost unchanged, with the chest in place of the heart, and the poem measures what the failure costs: if words satisfied, the world might hold a feast. That is hyperbole, but the size of the imagined feast is the size of the loss, since everybody has words and everybody needs satisfying. Summoned to the test, words oft satisfy the least — not merely inadequate but worst of everything one might turn to.

Stanza 6. The hardest image and the last. Words are showy plants, flower all the way down to the root, whose poor nature cannot grow one particle of fruit. The plant is not withered; it is covered in flowers, and the emptiness is hidden behind them.

The development. Four comparisons, each worse than the one before: something that leaves, something worthless, something that fails when tested, and finally something that deceives. The poem's message is not that words are worthless but that a few meant sincerely outweigh a great many that are not — and that the great many are the harder to detect.

The rhyme. Only the second and fourth lines of each stanza chime: care and air, needs and weeds, impart and heart, cheer and dear, feast and least, show and grow. The scheme is ABCB, and it is the right one for this poem specifically. A rhyme on every line would have made a poem about the emptiness of fine language sound like fine language, and the reader would have been enjoying the surface while being warned against surfaces. Rhyming twice a stanza keeps the movement steady and the attention on the claim.

It is worth noticing what the rhyme pairs are. Several of them set the poem's own opposition inside a single chime — feast against least is the whole of stanza 5 in two words, and impart against heart is the whole of stanza 3.

The repetitions. The word words appears in almost every stanza, and the phrase if words could satisfy opens both stanza 1 and stanza 5. The first repetition puts the same noun at the head of claim after claim: words depart, words are worth little, words reach the head, words satisfy least — so the reader hears one thing failing six different tests rather than six separate complaints.

The second repetition is the poem's method made visible. A condition is proposed — if — and is never met. Returning to it in stanza 5 is the poem checking whether anything has changed since stanza 1, and finding that nothing has.

The exclamation marks. Stanzas 4, 5 and 6 each end in one, and they are not the same feeling. Stanza 4 is admiration, for the few dear words that cheer a lonely home. Stanza 5 is frustration, that words fail exactly when they are tested. Stanza 6 is disillusionment, at blossom that will never become fruit.

Read in order they trace a descent: delight in what words can do, annoyance at what they usually do, and a settled loss of hope about what they pretend to do. That ordering is what gives a short poem its sense of movement, since the argument itself could have been stated in a single stanza.

Taken together these devices do what the poem recommends. It is six stanzas long, says one thing, and says it with restraint — a little said, and truly said.

A comparison made with like or as. This poem has three, and all three concern words: summer birds, weeds, and a plant that flowers without fruiting.

A comparison that states an identity rather than a likeness. The poem has one: the heart, a pilgrim upon earth.

Deliberate exaggeration for effect, not meant to be believed. Were the chest satisfied by words, the world might sit down to a feast.

A syllable is a single unit of speech or beat. A metre is formed of stressed and unstressed syllables, and it gives a poem its lyrical quality.

A five-part record of one word: a meaning in the student's own words, synonyms, antonyms, a sentence and a quick sketch or symbol.

Words are like summer birds that depart; words are of as little worth as just so many weeds; and words are like plants that make a gaudy show. All three use like or as, which is what makes them similes. What they have in common is that each is drawn from something that grows or flies, and each ends in disappointment — something that leaves, something worthless, and something that deceives. The poem grows steadily harder on its subject while never changing the kind of comparison it uses.

Because a metaphor states an identity rather than a likeness, and stating an identity is the stronger and warmer of the two moves. The similes all describe words, which the poem holds at arm's length and finally accuses of deceiving; the heart is the subject the poem is on the side of, and it alone is given the outright claim — the heart is a pilgrim upon earth. The distribution of the devices therefore tracks the poem's sympathies exactly.

Tonnes of things to do; missed the basket by a mile; could sleep for a decade; back in two seconds. The rejected options — lots of, an inch, a night, five minutes — are the difficulty because every one of them is perfectly sensible, and a student looking for a reasonable answer will choose it. That plausibility is exactly what disqualifies them. A hyperbole is not an approximate statement but a deliberately impossible one, and its force depends on the listener recognising the impossibility; missed by a mile says the shot was hopeless, where missed by an inch says it nearly went in.

A syllable is a single unit of speech, a beat of spoken language; a metre is formed by a stressed and an unstressed syllable, and the rhythm gives a poem its lyrical quality. Beyond the marks, the exercise teaches two things. The first is that stress is not importance: in the opening line if is unstressed and words is stressed, yet if is arguably the poem's most important word, so the pattern runs underneath the meaning rather than tracking it. The second is that it is heard rather than worked out — the instruction is to listen to the teacher read and then mark, because a student who reasons about where stresses ought to fall will get them wrong.

Satisfy the heart means makes one happy. Depart and leave but empty air means there is no outcome. Hosts of words means many words. Never touch the heart means does not appeal to our emotions. Wins its sunny way means cheers up a person. And plants that cannot grow fruit means makes no impact. What the set reveals is a balance: four of the six describe a failure and only two describe words doing anything, so even the exercise's vocabulary list is two-thirds about what words do not manage. The poem's argument is present in miniature in its own glossary.

Because every one of its answers is a word the poem uses — satisfy, depart, weeds, worth, impart, bloom as blossom, feast, and the worked example summoned. A student who has done the puzzle has already met the poem's vocabulary in flatly ordinary settings: a hunger, a train timetable, a gardener clearing beds, a meal after a ceremony. When weeds then reappears as the measure of worthless words, the reader has a gardener's weeds already in mind to set it against. The puzzle does not explain the poem; it stocks the reader with plain meanings so that the figurative ones have something to push against.

Simile — three of them. Words are like summer birds that depart; they are of as little worth as just so many weeds; and they are like plants that make a gaudy show. Each uses like or as, and each is drawn from something that grows or flies. What they contribute is a sequence of increasingly severe charges: the birds merely leave, the weeds are simply worthless, and the flowering plant actively misleads. The poem therefore escalates without ever changing its method of comparison, which keeps the argument from appearing to strain.

Metaphor — one only. The heart, a pilgrim upon earth. It contributes the reason the whole poem exists: a pilgrim is permanently travelling towards something not yet reached, so a heart in that condition needs something from outside itself, and that need is what words are failing to meet. Its being a metaphor rather than a simile also matters. The similes hold words at arm's length; the heart is stated outright to be a pilgrim, which is a warmer move, and the poem reserves it for the one subject it sympathises with.

Hyperbole — one, in stanza 5. Were the chest satisfied by words, the world might sit down to a feast. Nobody supposes the planet would sit down to dinner, and nobody is meant to. What it contributes is a measurement: it states how large the change would be if words worked, and the answer is universal, since everybody has words and everybody needs satisfying. The size of the imagined feast is the size of what is being lost.

Antithesis — twice, both in stanza 3. Words that reach the head are set against words that touch the heart, and a little said is set against hosts of words. These contribute the distinction the poem rests on and the concession that saves it from being an attack on language, which is why stanza 3 is the turn.

Taken together the devices divide the labour neatly. The similes accuse, the metaphor explains why the accusation matters, the hyperbole measures the cost, and the antitheses state the actual claim.

The six phrases. Satisfy the heart means makes one happy. Depart and leave but empty air means there is no outcome. Hosts of words means many words. Never touch the heart means does not appeal to our emotions. Wins its sunny way means cheers up a person. And plants that cannot grow fruit means makes no impact.

The matching is the easy half. Each phrase must then be used in a sentence of the student's own, which is considerably harder, because a phrase can be recognised and still be unusable — knowing what a phrase means is not the same as knowing what kind of situation it fits.

The set also carries an argument. Four of the six describe a failure and only two describe words doing anything at all, so the poem's case is present in miniature in its own glossary.

The word map. Six words — depart, pilgrim, cheer, sunny, satisfy, heart — each to be given a meaning in the student's own words, synonyms, antonyms, a sentence and a quick sketch. The worked example is cheer: meaning, to give a loud shout of approval; synonym, comfort; antonym, sadden; sentence, the audience cheered her for a great performance; sketch, sunshine or a smiling face.

The five parts are five separate routes into one word. A meaning can be memorised and never used; a synonym places the word among its neighbours; an antonym fixes its direction; a sentence proves it can be handled; and a sketch stores it as a picture rather than a definition. Several routes are harder to lose than one.

The example also contains a useful mismatch. A loud shout is not a comfort, so the synonym does not match the stated meaning — which shows that a synonym need only match some sense the word carries. It is the second sense that operates in the poem, where a voice cheers a lonely home without anybody raising it.

The grid puzzle. Seven words to be found from clues, with summoned worked out as an example: satisfy, depart and weeds across, and worth, impart, bloom and feast down.

Every one of them is a word of the poem. A student who has done the puzzle has met the vocabulary in ordinary settings — a hunger, a train, a gardener, a meal — before meeting it in poetry, so when weeds returns as the measure of worthless words there is a gardener's weeds already in mind. The puzzle does not explain anything; it stocks the reader with plain meanings so the figurative ones have something to push against.

A speaking competition in which a speaker delivers a piece with force and expression. The conversation in the listening task turns on which topic suits one.

The opening sentence of a body paragraph, which states the point that paragraph will make. Everything after it supports that one point.

Words and phrases joining one paragraph to the next — in addition to, for instance, however, consequently, finally.

A paragraph that states a possible criticism of the essay's own quotation and then gives the reason the criticism is baseless.

Expression and gesture carrying meaning without speech. The lesson's game tests it directly, and the listening passage argues for its importance.

The true ones are that the girl was excited to participate in the declamation contest. That the boy was doubtful about the suitability of the topic chosen. That she explained people prefer to keep personal experiences to themselves. And that the boy was unaware of the role body language plays in reflecting a speaker's confidence. The two false statements are built out of real material rather than invention. One takes a subject the girl genuinely discussed — body language — and reverses her position on it; the other takes a book that genuinely appears in the conversation and moves it in time. A listener who retains only the topics will mark both true.

It is testing who held which view and when things happened, rather than what subjects came up. That is the harder thing to hear, because a topic registers at once while an attribution has to be held in mind through the rest of the conversation. The stated number helps because it is a built-in check: a listener who has marked five statements knows immediately that one of them must be wrong, without being told which, and can go back to the recording to find it.

Gandhi says it is a heart with no words in prayer is worth more than words with no heart behind them. Dickinson says that saying nothing sometimes says the most. And King says that what stays with us at the last is not what our enemies said but what our friends did not. Gandhi's and Dickinson's treat wordlessness as a virtue — something chosen, and better than speech would have been. King's is the opposite: his silence is a failure, a thing that ought to have been broken, and it is remembered as a reproach rather than admired.

The introduction names the quotation and its speaker, says briefly why it appealed to the writer, and states the purpose of the essay. The second and third paragraphs each develop one specific point, opening with a topic sentence and supported by evidence, examples or narratives, with transition words joining them. The fourth states a possible criticism of the quotation and gives the reason that criticism is baseless. The fifth summarises the main points made in the body and ends with a statement designed to leave a lasting impression.

Because every other paragraph can be written by somebody who simply agrees with the quotation, and this one cannot. An essay that only defends its quotation has argued with nobody: it reads as a set of reasons for something the reader was never invited to doubt, and a reader who did doubt it stopped reading long before. Stating the strongest objection tells the reader that the writer has been outside their own position and come back, which is the difference between praise and a case. It cannot be faked because a weak objection, knocked down in a sentence, advertises that the writer either could not think of a real one or preferred not to.

In groups of six, each student writes or draws an expression on one slip and a gesture on another. The slips are jumbled and kept face down; players pick in turns and enact what they get in thirty seconds, and the first person to identify it scores ten points. Two rounds decide the Non-verbal Champion, and the game is a form of Dumb Charades. What it demonstrates is a stronger version of the poem's own claim. The poem argues that a great many words may fail to communicate; the game takes words away altogether and something still gets through, in half a minute, well enough to be scored. And since the points go to whoever identifies it first rather than to the performer, it rewards reading another person as much as expressing oneself.

The listening task. A girl and a boy discuss a declamation contest, and six statements are printed with the instruction to mark the four that are true.

The true ones are that the girl was excited to take part. That the boy doubted whether the chosen topic suited the contest. That she explained people prefer to keep personal experiences to themselves. And that he had been unaware of the part body language plays in reflecting a speaker's confidence. The two false ones are that she considered body language insignificant, which reverses her actual view, and that she had already issued the book on it, which she had not.

What it trains is attribution. Neither false statement invents anything: each takes real material from the conversation and alters who said it or when it happened. A listener who retains only body language came up and there was a book will mark both true. The task therefore forces the listener to hold not just subjects but positions and sequence, which is far harder.

The stated number is part of the design. Announcing that exactly four are true gives the listener an immediate check — five ticks means one is wrong — so the exercise contains its own correction.

The speaking task. Eight quotations are given, from Buddha, Martin Luther King Jr., Vivekananda, Gandhi, Kalpana Chawla, Homer, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. The student picks the one they like most, explains it, and gives the reason for the choice, with a connected personal experience if they have one.

The eight are carefully unalike. Buddha and Homer counsel restraint; Gandhi and Dickinson find value in wordlessness; King finds silence a failure rather than a virtue; Vivekananda and Whitman move behind words to thought and to drift; and Chawla's says nothing about words at all, being a wish for somebody else.

What this trains is explanation rather than taste. All five sentence cues supplied — I chose… because, I selected… since, I decided on… due to, I picked… as, I settled for… because — end in a reason, so a student who simply announces a favourite has not done the exercise. And because the eight disagree with one another, choosing any one of them commits the speaker to something the others deny.

The structure. Five paragraphs, on one quotation from the speaking activity.

The introduction mentions the quotation and the speaker, says briefly why it appealed, and states the purpose of the essay. The second and third paragraphs each explain one specific point related to the quotation, each beginning with a topic sentence that introduces that point and each supported by evidence, examples or narratives, with transition words ensuring a smooth flow — in addition to, for instance, however, consequently, finally. The fourth thinks of a possible criticism of the quotation and gives the reason that criticism is baseless. The fifth summarises the main points and ends with a statement leaving a lasting impression.

Why the fourth matters most. Every other paragraph can be produced by a writer who agrees with the quotation from the first line to the last. The introduction says why it appealed; the body paragraphs give reasons for it; the conclusion restates them. A student could write four-fifths of the essay without ever admitting that anybody in the world thinks otherwise.

An essay in that condition has argued with nobody. It reads as a list of reasons for a position the reader was never invited to question, and the one reader who does question it will have put the essay down before the third paragraph, since nothing in it acknowledges that they exist.

Stating the strongest objection changes the piece entirely. It tells the reader that the writer has been outside their own position, looked back at it, and returned — which is precisely the difference between praise and a case.

And it cannot be faked. A feeble objection, knocked over in a sentence, is worse than none: it advertises that the writer either could not think of a real one or did not want to look for it. The paragraph demands genuinely working out what somebody who disagreed would say, which is a different mental act from anything the other four require.

A note on the transitions. These are not ornament either. Each names a relation — more of the same, an example, a turn, a result, a close — and a reader takes that signal before reading the sentence it introduces. However placed above a paragraph that in fact agrees with the last one sends the reader hunting for a contradiction that never arrives.

Words are said to be like summer birds, which makes it a simile. The comparison holds in three ways: summer birds arrive, they are lovely while they are there, and they go when the season turns. What they leave behind is empty air — not a loss and not a ruin, but simply nothing. It establishes the poem's first and mildest complaint about words, that they do no injury at all and merely fail to remain. The stronger charges come later.

It is a metaphor rather than a simile, since the line says the heart is a pilgrim. A pilgrim is somebody permanently travelling towards something not yet reached, so the image explains why words are wanted at all: a heart in that condition needs something from outside itself. The stanza then turns on the phrase when it needs, which is easily passed over and is the hinge of the argument. Words are not being called worthless in general — they are found worth as little as weeds exactly when they are required, which is worse than being worthless always.

Because it prevents the poem from being a complaint about language. A little said, and truly said, can impart deeper joy than hosts of words — so words themselves are not the difficulty; too many of them are, and untrue ones. The stanza also supplies the distinction on which everything else rests, between words that reach the head and words that touch the heart. A great many can be understood; very few are felt, and nothing about the first guarantees the second.

Words are like summer birds that depart; words are of as little worth as just so many weeds; and words are like plants that make a gaudy show. All three use like or as, which is what makes them similes. What they have in common is that each is drawn from something that grows or flies, and each ends in disappointment — something that leaves, something worthless, and something that deceives. The poem grows steadily harder on its subject while never changing the kind of comparison it uses.

Because a metaphor states an identity rather than a likeness, and stating an identity is the stronger and warmer of the two moves. The similes all describe words, which the poem holds at arm's length and finally accuses of deceiving; the heart is the subject the poem is on the side of, and it alone is given the outright claim — the heart is a pilgrim upon earth. The distribution of the devices therefore tracks the poem's sympathies exactly.

Tonnes of things to do; missed the basket by a mile; could sleep for a decade; back in two seconds. The rejected options — lots of, an inch, a night, five minutes — are the difficulty because every one of them is perfectly sensible, and a student looking for a reasonable answer will choose it. That plausibility is exactly what disqualifies them. A hyperbole is not an approximate statement but a deliberately impossible one, and its force depends on the listener recognising the impossibility; missed by a mile says the shot was hopeless, where missed by an inch says it nearly went in.

The true ones are that the girl was excited to participate in the declamation contest. That the boy was doubtful about the suitability of the topic chosen. That she explained people prefer to keep personal experiences to themselves. And that the boy was unaware of the role body language plays in reflecting a speaker's confidence. The two false statements are built out of real material rather than invention. One takes a subject the girl genuinely discussed — body language — and reverses her position on it; the other takes a book that genuinely appears in the conversation and moves it in time. A listener who retains only the topics will mark both true.

It is testing who held which view and when things happened, rather than what subjects came up. That is the harder thing to hear, because a topic registers at once while an attribution has to be held in mind through the rest of the conversation. The stated number helps because it is a built-in check: a listener who has marked five statements knows immediately that one of them must be wrong, without being told which, and can go back to the recording to find it.

Gandhi says it is a heart with no words in prayer is worth more than words with no heart behind them. Dickinson says that saying nothing sometimes says the most. And King says that what stays with us at the last is not what our enemies said but what our friends did not. Gandhi's and Dickinson's treat wordlessness as a virtue — something chosen, and better than speech would have been. King's is the opposite: his silence is a failure, a thing that ought to have been broken, and it is remembered as a reproach rather than admired.