A Conversation
The textbook tells you what kind of poem it is first.
↳ Students are asked to work out what they are arguing about.
📚 Chapter Learning Kit
For Anne Gregory — Class 10 English — First Flight Poetry
English 3 topics 135 leveled MCQs 60 flashcards 4 games Free
Shared by a Veda teacher · Generated with Veda AI · Oct 2026
⚡ Veda Bites
💡 Key Idea
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🎯 Exam Tip
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The whole idea, one bite at a time
Veda Bites are swipeable micro-lessons — each one teaches exactly one idea. Here's a taste from this kit; the app has the full deck.
Nobody Will Love You For Yourself
His opening claim.
No young man will ever love her for herself alone, and not her yellow hair.
↳ A compliment and a sentence, in the same breath.
‘Ramparts’
The only glossed word in the poem — and it decides everything.
↳ Give the gloss first, then apply it.
It Is Not an Answer
The first thing to notice about his reply.
↳ The reply is a change of subject, and the poem knows it.
Old, Religious, and a Text
Count the authorities.
↳ He has retreated behind a stranger, a religion and a book.
‘But Yesternight’
And there is a fourth detail, which is a weakness.
An old word for last night.
↳ Funny, and revealing.
📖 Smart notes
What you'll study, topic by topic
1
Ramparts of Honey-Coloured Hair
A young man tells a young woman that nobody will ever see past her hair. She offers to dye it. Eighteen lines, two speakers, and one word doing most of the work.
- The poem is by William Butler Yeats, and the textbook introduces it as a conversation between a young man and a young woman, asking students…
- There are three stanzas of six lines each. The young man speaks the first and the third; the young woman speaks the second and gets the midd…
- He tells her that no young man will ever love her for herself alone, and not her yellow hair — because he is thrown into despair by the grea…
~25 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
2
Only God: the Reply, and the Rhyme
He does not answer her argument. He brings in an old man, a religion and a text, and concludes that only God could manage it — in a poem that cannot stop saying the word 'hair'.
- The third stanza is the young man's reply, and the striking thing about it is that he never argues with her. He does not say the dye would f…
- Three authorities are stacked in four lines: an old man, who is also a religious man, who had found a text — and the young man merely report…
- Nothing in that chain is the young man's own opinion. He has retreated behind an elderly stranger, a religion and a piece of scripture, all…
~26 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
3
Loved for Themselves Alone: the Wider Question
The textbook takes the poem out of the poem — into cars and phones, parents and pets, and Yeats's own question about the dancer and the dance.
- The third set question moves from the poem to objects. A car, a phone, a dress — what makes one more desirable than another, and what would…
- The useful discovery is that an honest seller and a flatterer make the same speech. Both name the visible quality and stop there, which is e…
- The fourth question asks whether people work the same way, and the book supplies four cases to think with.
~27 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
❓ Leveled MCQ practice
Try the smart MCQs from this kit
135 questions laddered from warm-up to topper-level, each with an explanation. A taste:
Before the poem begins the textbook tells students what kind of poem it is. What does it call it?
Beginner
A A conversation between a young man and a young woman
B A love song addressed by a young man to a young woman he admires
C A ballad telling a story
D A poem about Irish history
Show answer & explanation
A conversation between a young man and a young woman
And asks what they are arguing about.
The poem is a conversation, but its three stanzas are not shared equally between the two voices. How are they divided?
Intermediate
A The young woman speaks the first and third stanzas; the young man speaks the second
B They speak alternate lines throughout
C One speaker has all three stanzas
D The young man speaks the first and third; the young woman speaks the second
Show answer & explanation
The young man speaks the first and third; the young woman speaks the second
She gets the exact middle, and only one turn.
The young man opens the poem with a claim about something no young man will ever manage to do. What is that claim?
Intermediate
A That her yellow hair is quite the wrong colour for somebody with her complexion
B That she should marry somebody older
C That no young man will love her for herself alone rather than her yellow hair
D That she has broken his heart on purpose
Show answer & explanation
That no young man will love her for herself alone rather than her yellow hair
A compliment and a sentence in the same breath.
The textbook glosses exactly one word in this poem and offers the Red Fort as its example. What does that word mean?
Beginner
A Ribbons worn in the hair on especially formal occasions
B The gates of a city
C Ornaments hung at the ear
D The high, wide walls around a castle or fort
Show answer & explanation
The high, wide walls around a castle or fort
With the ramparts of the Red Fort as its example.
🃏 Flashcards
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60 flashcards in this kit — the app reviews them with spaced repetition so the right card returns on the right day.
🎮 Learning games
Play your way through this kit
Every game is built from this kit's own content — scores feed your mastery, so playing counts as studying.
Word Match
True False
Fill Blank
Word Scramble
Playable in the app
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