It Listens
Notice the verb the poem is built on.
Not *I see* a country at work. I hear. A lute in a street, an electrician humming, a boatman singing, a cook's voice.
↳ The poem is printed anonymous — the voice naming every identity has none itself.
📚 Chapter Learning Kit
Gifts of Grace · Class 9 English · Kaveri
English 3 topics 135 leveled MCQs 60 flashcards 4 games Free
Shared by a Veda teacher · Generated with Veda AI · Oct 2026
⚡ Veda Bites
💡 Concept
📖 Definition
💡 Summary
📖 Definition
💡 Concept
💡 Concept
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.
The Frame
One word changes between first line and last.
The speaker hears Bharat celebrating, and hears the varied vocations. At the close, the varied voices.
↳ The whole argument, delivered by a single substitution.
The First Four
Name a worker; give the sound.
↳ The carpenters are the poem's nod to a manual trade being an intellectual one.
Free Verse
Asked for the rhyme scheme, say there isn't one.
No fixed rhyme, no regular metre — but not no form.
↳ A catalogue with a frame around it, not a poem in stanzas.
Uneven Lineation
Why the lines are all different lengths.
↳ A fixed line length would have forced them all into the same size.
The Line Pattern
Underneath the variation, one shape repeats.
Name a worker, then say what that worker does, makes, or sounds like.
↳ Structure without metre has to come from somewhere.
📖 Smart notes
What you'll study, topic by topic
1
The Poem, Voice by Voice
A speaker stands in a country and listens. Nine kinds of worker are named in turn, each given a sound of their own, and the poem closes on the line it opened with — changing one word. This topic follows what the poem say…
- The poem is printed as anonymous, and its opening line is repeated at the close with one word altered — vocations becomes voices.
- Craftspersons are celebrated for a craft woven with colours and myriad hues, and artisans with lutes for hailing varied emotions and celebra…
- Carpenters are praised for creating anything out of wood with mathematical precision, and electricians for working with cables and wires to…
~26 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
2
How the Poem Works
The same poem, taken apart. Why it has no rhyme and why its lines are uneven; who the speaker is and what that position gives them; the sounds and sights it builds; and the five devices — metaphor, personification, allit…
- The poem keeps no rhyme scheme; it is free verse, and the lengths of its lines vary a great deal.
- Most lines follow a single pattern: name a worker, then say what that worker does, makes or sounds like.
- The speaker is a listener rather than a describer, and the verb the poem keeps returning to is hear.
~27 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
3
The Language and Skills Work of This Poem
Six more vocations to name from their definitions, a vocabulary exercise built on two different kinds of wrong answer, a recorded conversation between two friends about their parents' work, a group speaking task, a poste…
- A horticulturist studies or grows garden plants, and a sericulturist produces raw silk.
- An ASHA worker is a trained female community health worker; the letters stand for Accredited Social Health Activist.
- ASHA workers are employed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as part of India's National Rural Health Mission.
~28 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:
A student says the poem describes a country at work. What more precise word would the poem itself suggest?
Advanced
A It measures a country at work, since it counts the trades it names
B It judges a country at work, since it ranks the vocations it lists
C It listens to a country at work, since the verb it keeps returning to is hear
D It mourns a country at work, since it dwells on the hardship of labour
Show answer & explanation
It listens to a country at work, since the verb it keeps returning to is hear
Almost everything the poem reports is a sound rather than a sight.
Why does the choice of hearing rather than seeing matter to the poem's effect?
Advanced
A A describer stands outside what is described, while a listener is in the street with it
B Sound can be recorded more accurately than sight can be
C It allows the poem to avoid naming any specific place
D It makes the poem shorter than a description would have been
Show answer & explanation
A describer stands outside what is described, while a listener is in the street with it
Position, not preference — the speaker is among the workers rather than above them.
What is unusual about the poem's authorship?
Intermediate
A It is credited to two poets working together
B It is attributed to the workers it describes
C It is printed as anonymous, so the voice naming every identity has none of its own
D It is presented as a translation from another language
Show answer & explanation
It is printed as anonymous, so the voice naming every identity has none of its own
A quiet irony in a poem about identity.
The opening line returns at the end of the poem with one alteration. What is it?
Intermediate
A Celebrating becomes singing
B Hear becomes heard
C Vocations becomes voices
D Varied becomes myriad
Show answer & explanation
Vocations becomes voices
The substitution states what the poem has been proving throughout.
🃏 Flashcards
Tap a card to flip it
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
Study it properly — free, in the app
The full Veda Bites deck, complete notes, spaced-repetition flashcards, leveled MCQs, tests and games for this kit — plus Daily Facts and the Arena, every day.