The Shortest Poem in the Course
Twenty-one words. Four questions.
↳ Everything in this poem is doing work.
📚 Chapter Learning Kit
Fog · 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
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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.
What Is the Fog Like?
Set question 1(i), answerable in a word.
A cat.
↳ The whole poem, in one noun.
How Does It Come?
Set question 1(ii).
↳ Three adverbs and a quotation.
What a Metaphor Is
The textbook supplies the definition itself.
It compares two things by taking a feature of the one and giving it to the other.
↳ Printed inside the question, with a reference back to an earlier unit.
Metaphor or Simile?
The commonest confusion in the whole poetry section.
↳ LIKE or AS → simile. Nothing → metaphor.
A Metaphor, Start To Finish
So which is this poem?
↳ Calling this poem a simile loses a mark and misses the point.
📖 Smart notes
What you'll study, topic by topic
1
Six Lines, and a Cat Nobody Names
Twenty-one words, one animal that is never mentioned by name, and a whole visit — arrival, pause and departure — fitted into three sentences.
- The poem is by Carl Sandburg, an American poet, and it is six lines long — the shortest poem in the Class 10 course.
- Sandburg thinks the fog is like a cat. That is the whole idea of the poem, and the textbook asks it as its very first question.
- The fog comes on little cat feet: silently, softly and without being noticed, the way a cat walks into a room.
~24 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
2
Metaphor, and How to Build One
The textbook stops the poem to teach a device, hands over a half-finished table and asks for a poem of your own. This is how to do both well.
- The textbook gives the definition itself: a metaphor sets two things side by side by handing a quality of the one straight to the other. Lea…
- The difference from a simile is a matter of words. A simile says that one thing is like another and uses 'like' or 'as'; a metaphor drops th…
- The poem is a metaphor from beginning to end. The fog is never said to be like a cat; it is simply given a cat's feet, a cat's haunches and…
~26 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
3
Free Verse, and a Poem With No Moral
No rhyme, no regular beat, no message, and six lines that work anyway. What free verse is, what the line breaks are doing instead, and why a poem does not have to teach anything.
- The third set question asks whether this poem has a rhyme scheme. It does not — and the answer can be proved simply by listing the words at…
- The textbook then supplies the term: verse with no rhyme and no regular beat to it is called free verse. That definition is worth learning e…
- There is no regular metre either. The lines run to different lengths, and nothing in the poem falls into a beat that could be counted on.
~25 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:
Who wrote this poem, and what is unusual about its length?
Beginner
A Robert Frost — and it is the longest in the book
B Adrienne Rich — and it has five stanzas
C Robin Klein — and it has seven stanzas
D Carl Sandburg — and it is only six lines long
Show answer & explanation
Carl Sandburg — and it is only six lines long
Twenty-one words in all.
The textbook's very first question about this poem can be answered in a single word. What does Sandburg think the fog is like?
Beginner
A A cat
B A blanket
C A ghost
D A river
Show answer & explanation
A cat
And the rest of the answer proves it.
The poem's second line gives the manner of the fog's arrival in four words. According to the poem, how does it arrive?
Beginner
A On a cold wind
B Rolling down from the hills
C With the evening tide
D On little cat feet
Show answer & explanation
On little cat feet
A set textbook question.
Explaining that phrase in your own words, how does the fog come?
Intermediate
A Suddenly and violently, in a single visible rush
B Slowly and noisily
C Silently, softly and without being noticed
D Only after dark
Show answer & explanation
Silently, softly and without being noticed
Quotation and explanation together make a full answer.
🃏 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.