The Night Mail: ICSE Class 9 English poem questions and answers
Get notes, line-by-line explanation, summary, questions and answers, critical analysis, word meanings, extras, and pdf of the poem The Night Mail by W.H. Auden which is part of ICSE Class 9 English (Treasure Chest). However, the notes should only be treated for references and changes should be made according to the needs of the students.
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Workbook answers/solutions
Text-based Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
1. What does the poem celebrate?
Answer: (b) human connections
2. Where was the mail train heading towards?
Answer: (c) Glasgow
3. ‘Snorting noisily as she passes’. Which figure of speech is used here?
Answer: (a) personification
4. Why does no one wake up from their sleep as the train passes?
Answer: (d) They have become habitual to the train’s passing and ignore it.
5. Which of these is NOT carried by the train?
Answer: (d) furnace
6. ‘For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?’ Which literary device is used here?
Answer: (c) rhetorical question
7. Select the correct option in context of the statements given:
Statement 1: The train moves up a hill at first.
Statement 2: The train passes through various regions.
Answer: (d) Both the statements are true.
8. Select the correct option that displays the characteristics of the personified train correctly.
Answer: (b) 1, 3 and 5
9. Which of these is repeated numerous times in the poem?
Answer: (a) letters
10. Which types of letters are amusing and mischievous?
Answer: (d) catty
Comprehension Passages
Passage 1
This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient against her, but she’s on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
(i) Where is the Night Mail heading for? What does it carry?
Answer: The Night Mail train is heading towards Scotland from London. It is carrying cheques, postal orders and letters for people – both rich and poor.
(ii) ‘Letters for the rich, letters for the poor’. Comment on the significance of this line.
Answer: This line signifies that the mail train carries letters for everyone, irrespective of their social or economic status. It highlights the inclusiveness and importance of the postal service.
(iii) How does the mail train start its journey? How would you describe it?
Answer: The mail train starts its journey by steadily climbing up Beattock. It is personified as a dutiful, methodical being moving steadily on its track.
(iv) Describe various regions in which the train passes.
Answer: The train passes through cotton-grass fields, moorlands with boulders, wind-bent grasses, and farm lands where people are asleep.
(v) How does the poet describe Glasgow area later in the context?
Answer: Glasgow is described as an industrial area with fields of apparatus, furnaces and steam tugs. It is a noisy, active region in contrast to the calm natural landscape earlier.
Passage 2
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.
(i) Which figure of speech is used in Line 1?
Answer: Personification
(ii) Comment on the use of phrase ‘blank-faces’ for the train coaches.
Answer: ‘Blank-faced’ signifies that the coaches are expressionless and timid, simply following the train engine dutifully.
(iii) What do sheep-dogs do? What is their purpose?
Answer: The sheep-dogs try to turn the course of the train but cannot do so. Their purpose is to guide and guard sheep.
(iv) How do sleeping people react as the train passes? Why?
Answer: The sleeping farm people do not wake up as the train passes. They are used to it passing daily. Only a jug shakes slightly.
(v) What kinds of letters are carried by the train?
Answer: The train carries letters of various types – letters of thanks, joy, gossip, news, applications, declarations, condolences etc. There are friendly, boring, clever, stupid letters in different styles.
Passage 3
Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.
(i) Where is the train heading for? How has its initial journey been described by the poet?
Answer: The train is now descending down towards Glasgow after finishing its uphill climb. Its initial journey has been depicted as a steady, dutiful climb upwards.
(ii) What kind of Glasgow region is?
Answer: Glasgow is shown as an industrial area with furnaces, fields of apparatus, steam tugs, cranes etc.
(iii) Which figure of speech is used in Line 5 here, and why?
Answer: The simile “like gigantic chessmen” is used to describe the furnaces, implying industrial planning and building.
(iv) Describe the things carried by the train in brief.
Answer: The train carries letters, cheques, news, applications, declarations, gossip, bills, invitations etc.
(v) What does the poet convey about waiting people of Scotland later in the context?
Answer: The Scottish people anxiously wait for news and letters that the train brings. They long for some connection.
Passage 4
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers’ declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
(i) How did the train start its journey? What regions did it cross at night?
Answer: The train started by steadily climbing up Beattock. It passed through moorlands, cotton grass fields, farm lands etc. at night.
(ii) How has the poet described Glasgow area earlier in the context?
Answer: Glasgow has been depicted as an industrial area with furnaces, cranes, steam tugs etc.
(iii) What is being carried by the train except letters?
Answer: Besides letters, the train carries cheques, bills, invitations, applications, declarations, news, gossip etc.
(iv) What kinds of letters is the train carrying?
Answer: It is carrying letters of various tones – joyful, gossiping, boring, adoring, clever, stupid, short, long in different styles.
(v) How do people wait for the train?
Answer: People anxiously wait for the train and the letters/news it brings. They long for the connection.
Passage 5
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart’s outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.
(i) How has the train covered its journey upto Glasgow earlier in the context?
Answer: The train has made a steady climb upwards initially, passed through natural landscapes and then descended down towards industrial Glasgow.
(ii) What is the train carrying?
Answer: It is carrying letters, notes, news, cheques, gossip, declarations etc.
(iii) ‘The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring’. Comment on this line.
Answer: This line refers to the different tones and purposes of the letters – friendly, gossiping, boring, admiring etc.
(iv) What different styles and colours are used to write letters by different people? What do they reveal about them?
Answer: Letters are hand-written, typed, printed in different colours like pink, white, blue etc. They reveal the personalities of writers – friendly, boring, stupid, intelligent etc.
(v) What have Glasgow’s people been doing as the train reaches its destination? What do they expect when they wake up?
Answer: The Scottish people have been asleep, dreaming. They expect letters and news when they wake up. They long for connection.
Passage 6
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston’s or Crawford’s:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman’s knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
(i) Describe the initial stage of the train’s night journey.
Answer: Initially, the train started with a steady climb up Beattock. It passed through natural landscapes at night.
(ii) What has it carried for the people?
Answer: The train has carried letters, news, cheques, bills, declarations, gossip etc. for the people.
(iii) What have the people been dreaming of? What do they expect when they wake up?
Answer: The people have been dreaming of monsters or friendly gatherings. When they wake up, they expect letters and news from the mail train.
(iv) Point out the two figures of speech used in the last lines.
Answer: Personification and rhetorical question. The postman’s knock is personified. A rhetorical question is asked about feeling forgotten.
(v) The poet seems to emphasise ‘human connections’. Comment.
Answer: The poem shows that people long for letters and news as they don’t want to feel forgotten. Human connections are essential, and mail brought that earlier.
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