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NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 1 –22Try Again (Eliza Cook) — Let us think and reflect

Book page 21 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Read the extract and answer: “He flung himself down in low despair, / As grieved as man could be; / And after a while he pondered there, / ‘I'll give it all up,' said he. // Now just at that moment a spider dropped, / With its silken, filmy clue;” — Select the phrase which shows the physical expression of the King's emotional state.
Answer

The phrase is “flung himself down”.

His body does what his mind feels. Despair pulls a person downward, and the King throws himself down rather than sitting; the word flung adds the violence of a man who has given up.

Q2.
Why does the poet use the word ‘low' before despair?
Answer

To show that this is despair at its deepest point — not passing sadness but the very bottom of hope. ‘Low' intensifies the noun.

It works in two more ways. It matches the downward movement of the whole line — “flung himself down in low despair”. And it prepares the contrast for the rest of the poem, which is entirely about going up: “Up, up it ran”, “Higher and higher he got”. The King must be shown at the lowest point before the spider can lift him.

Q3.
Choose the correct option to complete the sentence. In the line, ‘And after a while he pondered there', the word ‘pondered' means _____________. A. paused B. thought C. noticed D. rested
Answer

B. thought

To ponder is to think about something long and seriously. The line that follows proves it — he reaches a decision: “‘I'll give it all up,' said he.” Only thinking, not pausing or resting, ends in a decision.

Q4.
Choose the correct option from the words given in the brackets. The phrase ‘silken filmy clue' creates an image of something that is _____________ (long and light / very delicate and soft).
Answer

very delicate and soft

Why it happens: Silken means soft and smooth as silk; filmy means so thin that you can almost see through it. Both words describe texture, not length. The poet says elsewhere that “it hung by a rope so fine” and that “'Twas a delicate thread it had to tread” — the fragility of the thread is the whole point, because it makes the spider's climb look impossible.
Did you know? ‘Clue' here is used in its oldest sense — a ball or thread of yarn. That is where our modern word ‘clue' (a thread that leads you to an answer) comes from.
Q5.
Read the extract and answer: “…when it toils so hard to reach and cling, And tumbles every time.” / But up the insect went once more, / Ah me! ‘tis an anxious minute; / He's only a foot from his cobweb door, / Oh say, will he lose or win it? — Choose the correct option to complete the analogy: toil: hard :: _______ : _______ A. roll: tumble B. tumble: circle C. compress: roll D. jump: tumble
Answer

A. roll: tumble

Why it happens: The relation in toil : hard is that the first word already contains the second — to toil is to work hard. In the same way, to roll is to tumble; the meaning of the second word is built into the first. In the other options the two words are not related in that way: tumbling is not circling, compressing is not rolling, and jumping is not tumbling.
Q6.
List any two characteristics of the spider highlighted in the line, ‘But up the insect went once more'.
Answer
  1. Perseverance — “once more” tells us this is not the first attempt but one of many; it has fallen repeatedly and is climbing again.
  2. Courage / an uncomplaining spirit — it goes up, straight back towards the danger, without pausing to rest or, as the poet says earlier, “To utter the least complaint”.
Tip: Strictly, a spider is not an insect at all but an arachnid — page 26 of your book points this out. The poet uses ‘insect' loosely, as people did in her time.
Q7.
Choose the correct option to complete the sentence. The expression ‘Ah me!' in the extract indicates a sense of _______________. A. happiness B. stress C. relief D. loneliness
Answer

B. stress

The words around it prove it: “'tis an anxious minute” and “Oh say, will he lose or win it?” The speaker is tense because the spider is only a foot from its door and could still fall. Relief would come afterwards, when the spider is safely home.

Q8.
Complete the sentence with an appropriate reason. Readers are able to relate to this extract because ____________.
Answer

Readers are able to relate to this extract because everyone has known that “anxious minute” — the moment when you are very close to finishing something difficult and are afraid of failing at the last step, having already failed several times before.

The poet makes the feeling shared by speaking directly to the reader: “Oh say, will he lose or win it?” We are not watching the spider from outside; we are asked for our opinion, so we hold our breath with the King.

Q9.
How does the first stanza help in setting the mood of the poem?
Answer

The first stanza establishes a mood of loneliness and sinking hope, against which everything later will be measured.

“King Bruce of Scotland flung himself down
In a lonely mood to think;
'Tis true he was monarch, and wore a crown,
But his heart was beginning to sink.”
  • “flung himself down” — defeat shown through the body.
  • “a lonely mood” — he is alone with the problem; no adviser is coming.
  • “'Tis true he was monarch, and wore a crown, But…” — the ‘but' tells us that power and a crown are no protection against failure.
  • “his heart was beginning to sink” — ‘beginning' warns that the mood will get worse before it gets better.
Why it happens: A poem about rising must begin with a fall. Because the first stanza takes the King to the bottom, the spider's climb and the closing “that time did not fail” feel like a real rise.
Q10.
Describe how King Bruce's attitude changes from the beginning towards the end of the poem.
Answer
StageHis attitudeHis words or actions
BeginningDefeated, hopeless“flung himself down… his heart was beginning to sink”; “I'll give it all up,” said he.
Watching the spiderIdly curious, then scornfulHe “stopped / To see what the spider would do”; then, “that foolish thing / Will strive no more to climb”.
The anxious minuteInvolved, tense“Ah me! 'tis an anxious minute… will he lose or win it?”
After the ninth climbAdmiring, then resolved“Bravo, bravo!… All honour to those who try… He conquered, and why shouldn't I?”
EndDetermined and successful“And Bruce of Scotland braced his mind… he tried once more as he tried before, / And that time did not fail.”

In short, he travels from “I'll give it all up” to “why shouldn't I?” — and the change is brought about not by advice but by something he watched with his own eyes.

Q11.
The poet describes every action of the spider in great detail. What does this tell us about his attitude towards the spider?
Answer

It tells us that the poet respects and admires the spider and wants us to treat it as the hero of the poem, not as a small creature on a wall.

  • She counts its attempts exactly — “Nine brave attempts were counted” — as one would count a champion's rounds.
  • She uses the language of courage for it: “strong endeavour”, “brave attempts”, “defied despair”, “He conquered”.
  • She notices its suffering — “A little dizzy and faint”, “a road where its feet would tire”.
  • She calls it he, not it, in the later stanzas, which quietly raises the spider to the King's level.
Why it happens: If the spider were described in one line, King Bruce's change of heart would seem sudden and unearned. By making us watch every fall and every climb, the poet lets us experience what the King experiences — so his decision at the end feels like our own.
Q12.
How does the spider inspire us to overcome despair and not give up?
Answer

By showing that a fall is only an interruption, never an ending.

  • It never complains: “not a second to stay, / To utter the least complaint”.
  • It steadies itself and starts again: “Its head grew steady — again it went”.
  • It keeps going after eight failures, when even the watching King has written it off as “that foolish thing”.
  • It finishes with everything it has left: “a bold little run at the very last pinch / Put him into his native cot.”

The lesson for us is practical: get your head steady, take the next step, and save something for the last stretch. As the King says, “All honour to those who try.”

Q13.
The poem teaches us that failures are stepping stones to success. Explain.
Answer

Each of the spider's failures teaches it something and carries it a little further, so the failures are not wasted — they are the steps by which it climbs.

Attempt 1 — “down it came with a slippery sprawl, / As near to the ground as ever.”
Attempt 2 — “it fell still lower, and there it lay, / A little dizzy and faint.”
Attempt 3 — “Its head grew steady — again it went, / And travelled a half-yard higher.”
…
Attempt 9 — “Steadily, steadily, inch by inch, / Higher and higher he got” → success

Notice that the spider gets higher after the fall that left it dizzy. The same is true of King Bruce: “he had tried and tried, but couldn't succeed” — yet those failed attempts were what taught him the task, so that when he “tried once more as he tried before… that time did not fail”.

Tip: A failure becomes a stepping stone only if you climb back on it. The poem is careful to show the climbing back, not just the falling.
Q14.
The spider's journey tells us that anyone can be a source of inspiration in our lives. Elaborate.
Answer

The teacher in this poem is the smallest and least important creature in the room, and the student is a king.

Bruce wears a crown, rules a country and has been trying to do “a great deed” for his people; the spider has nothing but a thread “so fine” that the King cannot even guess how it will get home. Yet it is the spider that says the one thing Bruce needs to hear — and it says it without a single word, simply by climbing again. Bruce himself admits the debt: “The spider up there, defied despair; / He conquered, and why shouldn't I?”

The lesson is that inspiration does not depend on the size, rank or fame of the one who gives it. A grandmother learning to sign her name, a classmate who keeps practising a sum, a labourer who finishes a wall in the rain — anyone we watch closely enough can teach us not to quit.

Tip: The condition is attention. Bruce is inspired only because he “stopped / To see what the spider would do”. Inspiration is available to those who bother to look.
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