NOTES FOR CBSE / ICSE

    A Photograph The cardboard shows me how it was When the two girl cousins went paddling Each one holding one of my mother’s hands, And she the big girl - some twelve years or so. All three stood still to smile through their hair At the uncle with the camera, A sweet face My mother’s, that was before I was born And the sea, which appears to have changed less Washed their terribly transient feet.   Some twenty- thirty- years later She’d laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty And Dolly," she’d say, “and look how they Dressed us for the beach." The sea holiday was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry With the laboured ease of loss   Now she’s has been dead nearly as many years As that girl lived. And of this circumstance There is nothing to say at all, Its silence silences.   BY SHIRLEY TOULSON Q1: Write the substance of the poem "A photograph" By Shirley Toulson. Ans: The poem "A Photograph" by Shirley Tou

    Ant and Cricket A silly young cricket, accustomed to sing Through the warm, sunny months of gay summer and spring, Began to complain when he found that, at home, His cupboard was empty, and winter was come. Not a crumb to be found On the snow-covered ground; Not a flower could he see, Not a leaf on a tree. “Oh! what will become," says the cricket, “of me?" At last by starvation and famine made bold, All dripping with wet, and all trembling with cold, Away he set off to a miserly ant, To see if, to keep him alive, he would grant Him shelter from rain, And a mouthful of grain. He wished only to borrow; He’d repay it tomorrow; If not, he must die of starvation and sorrow. Says the ant to the  cricket,  “I’m your servant  and friend, But we ants never borrow; we ants never  lend. But tell me, dear cricket, did you lay nothing by When the weather was warm?" Quoth the cricket, “Not I! My heart was so light That I sa