NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 4 –177Harvest Hymn (Sarojini Naidu) — Let us discuss

Book page 176 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

I. Write the stanza number for the main idea of each stanza given below. 1. The speakers recognise the lord's kindness and praise him for nourishing the field. 2. The speakers praise the generosity of the creator of the universe who ensures a rich harvest. 3. The speakers devote their lives and work as a mark of respect to the lord and seek his support, wisdom, and care. 4. The speakers pay homage to the Earth and appreciate her role in supporting life, by dedicating their harvest.

Answer

First fix what each stanza actually is:

Stanza	Voice	Addressed to	Key words
1	Men's Voices	Surya, the sun	'munificent', 'bounty', 'gold of our fields', 'mellowing radiance'
2	Men's Voices	Varuna, the rain	'mercy that cherished our furrows', 'mercy that fostered our grain'
3	Women's Voices	Prithvi, the Earth	'sweet and omnipotent mother', 'plentiful bosom that feeds us'
4	All Voices	Brahma, Lord of the Universe	'Seed and the Scythe', 'our lives and our labours', 'thy succour, thy counsel, thy care'

The answers:

Main idea	Stanza	Why
1. The speakers recognise the lord's kindness and praise him for nourishing the field.	Stanza 2	'kindness' is the poem's word mercy, and 'nourishing the field' is 'cherished our furrows… fostered our grain'. A furrow is the field itself.
2. The speakers praise the generosity of the creator of the universe who ensures a rich harvest.	Stanza 1	'generosity' is the poem's word munificent and its bounty repeated twice; the rich harvest is 'the gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit'.
3. The speakers devote their lives and work as a mark of respect to the lord and seek his support, wisdom, and care.	Stanza 4	Almost a translation of the lines: 'We bring thee our lives and our labours for tribute, / Grant us thy succour, thy counsel, thy care.'
4. The speakers pay homage to the Earth and appreciate her role in supporting life, by dedicating their harvest.	Stanza 3	The only stanza addressed to the Earth: 'Thine is the plentiful bosom that feeds us, / Thine is the womb where our riches have birth.'

How to be sure of 1 and 2, which look alike: Match the exact word, not the general sense. 'Kindness' and 'generosity' are near-synonyms in ordinary speech, but the poem uses two different words in two different stanzas — mercy in stanza 2 and munificent / bounty in stanza 1 — and 'kindness' translates mercy while 'generosity' translates munificence.

Q2.

II. 1. The setting of the poem is a rural landscape, possibly during a __________ (harvest/religious) festival.

Answer

The setting of the poem is a rural landscape, possibly during a harvest festival.

Why: Everything offered in the poem has just been reaped — 'the gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit', 'the wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe'. Garnered means gathered into a granary, and new-garnered means only just gathered in. The title says it too: this is a harvest hymn. It is of course religious as well — but the occasion that has brought everyone out with cymbal and drum is the harvest.

Q3.

II. 2. The tone of the poem is respectful and celebratory because it praises ______ (the men and women/nature and the Lord) with deep respect and gratitude.

Answer

The tone of the poem is respectful and celebratory because it praises nature and the Lord with deep respect and gratitude.

Why: The men and women are the singers, not the subject. Every stanza is addressed outward — to Surya, to Varuna, to Prithvi, to Brahma — and the repeated 'we hail thee, we praise thee' fixes the direction of the praise. The farmers say almost nothing about their own labour except to offer it away.

Tip: When a question asks about tone, look at who is being addressed and at the verbs. 'We bring… we hail… we praise… Grant us…' are the verbs of worship, not of celebration of oneself.

Q4.

II. 3. In the line 'Thou art our Hands and our Heart and our Home', the letter 'h' is capitalised in 'Hands', 'Heart' and 'Home' because ______. (it represents the hard work of farmers/God resides in them)

Answer

The letter 'h' is capitalised because God resides in them.

Why: A capital letter in the middle of a line is a signal. In this poem it marks the divine — 'Lord', 'Father', 'Om', 'the Seed and the Scythe'. By capitalising Hands, Heart and Home, Sarojini Naidu lifts three ordinary human things to the same level: the line is not saying that God gave us hands, but that God is our hands, our heart and our home. The verb is 'art' — 'Thou art' — a statement of identity, not of gift.

Notice the sound too: Hands, Heart, Home — three stressed words all beginning with /h/, in one line. The capital letters and the alliteration work together to make the line feel like the climax of the whole hymn, which is exactly where it stands.

Q5.

III. Identify the poetic device used in the following lines from the poem. • Bright and munificent lord of the morn! • We bring thee our lives and our labours for tribute

Answer

Both lines use alliteration — the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words that are close together.

Line	Repeated sound	Words
Bright and munificent lord of the morn!	/m/	munificent … morn
We bring thee our lives and our labours for tribute	/l/	lives … labours

Why a poet uses it: A hymn is meant to be sung aloud by many people at once. Repeated consonants bind words into a single sweep of breath and make a line easy to chant and easy to remember — the same reason slogans and prayers alliterate. Notice also that in the second line alliteration does a second job: it yokes 'lives' and 'labours' together, so that the farmer's work and the farmer's life are offered as one gift, not two.

Tip: Alliteration is about sound, not spelling. Test by saying the line aloud. In 'Bright and munificent lord of the morn', the /m/ of munificent and morn is what your ear catches.

Q6.

IV. Match the lines from the poem in Column 1 with their expressions in Column 2. Choose the appropriate poetic device from the box given below and write in Column 3. [imagery, alliteration, simile, metaphor, personification] — Column 1: 1. sweet and omnipotent mother 2. The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe 3. Thou art the Seed and the Scythe. Column 2: (i) creates a clear description of the scene and appeals to the senses (ii) implied comparison of growth and reaping with beginning and end of all life (iii) the earth is being given human-like qualities

Answer

Column 1 (line)	Column 2 (expression)	Column 3 (device)
1. sweet and omnipotent mother	(iii) the earth is being given human-like qualities	personification
2. The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe	(i) creates a clear description of the scene and appeals to the senses	imagery
3. Thou art the Seed and the Scythe	(ii) implied comparison of growth and reaping with beginning and end of all life	metaphor

How each device works in its line:

Personification — the Earth is not like a mother; she is addressed as one, with a bosom that feeds and a womb where riches have birth. A non-human thing is given a human body and a human role.
Imagery — 'new-garnered and ripe' makes you see and almost smell the heaped grain of a particular moment: gathered in, still fresh. Imagery is language that appeals to the senses.
Metaphor — God is called the Seed and the Scythe outright, with no 'like' or 'as'. Seed is where a crop begins; the scythe is what ends it. So the line compresses the whole span from creation to ending into two objects a farmer holds in his own hands.

Tip: The two devices in the box you did not use are simile and alliteration — there is no 'like' or 'as' comparison anywhere in this poem, and alliteration was the answer to the previous question, not to this matching.

Q7.

V. Certain words or phrases are repeated in the same line of the poem. For example, 'The gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit;' Find more such repetitions from the poem. What is the poet's purpose of using repetition in the poem?

Answer

More repetitions in the poem:

Repetition	Where
'Lord of the lotus, lord of the harvest'	stanza 1, opening line
'Thine is the bounty… / Thine is the bounty…'	stanza 1
'Lord of the rainbow, lord of the harvest'	stanza 2, opening line
'Thine is the mercy… / Thine is the mercy…'	stanza 2
'Queen of the gourd-flower, queen of the harvest'	stanza 3, opening line
'Thine is the plentiful bosom… / Thine is the womb…'	stanza 3
'Lord of the Universe, Lord of our being'	stanza 4, opening line
'Thou art the Seed and the Scythe… / Thou art our Hands and our Heart and our Home'	stanza 4
'We bring thee our…' (songs / thanks / love / lives) and 'garlands for tribute'	the fifth line of every stanza
'we hail thee, / We praise thee, O …, with cymbal and …'	the last two lines of every stanza
'thy succour, thy counsel, thy care'	stanza 4

The poet's purpose:

To make it singable. A hymn is chanted by a crowd. Repeated openings and endings give everyone a line they already know, so men, women and finally all voices can come in together.
To build a rhythm like a chant or a drumbeat — which matches the cymbal, flute, pipe and drum the poem itself names.
To emphasise. Saying 'Thine is…' twice insists that nothing in the harvest belongs to the farmer. Everything is received, not earned.
To hold the four stanzas together. Each stanza has a different deity and a different instrument, but the same skeleton — so four separate praises become one hymn.
To make it beautiful and easy to remember. 'The gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit' stays in the ear long after the sense is understood.

Look at what changes inside the repetition: the frame stays fixed and one word moves — songs, thanks, love, lives; flute, pipe, drum, prayer. The gift grows more precious each time until the farmers are offering their own lives, and the instrument grows quieter until it is no instrument at all, only prayer. That is the poem's whole design, and it is built entirely out of repetition.

Q8.

VI. The poem uses symbolism to convey deeper meanings. Match the symbols in Column 1 with the meanings they convey in Column 2. Column 1: 1. Prithvi (the Earth) 2. Surya (the Sun) 3. Varuna (Rain). Column 2: (i) light, energy, life—representing the giver of warmth and prosperity (ii) mercy and nourishment—crucial for agriculture and sustenance (iii) fertile land, motherhood, nurturing—the source of all life

Answer

Symbol	Meaning	The line that proves it
1. Prithvi (the Earth)	(iii) fertile land, motherhood, nurturing — the source of all life	'Sweet and omnipotent mother, O Earth! / Thine is the plentiful bosom that feeds us, / Thine is the womb where our riches have birth.'
2. Surya (the Sun)	(i) light, energy, life — the giver of warmth and prosperity	'Bright and munificent lord of the morn!… O giver of mellowing radiance, we hail thee.'
3. Varuna (Rain)	(ii) mercy and nourishment — crucial for agriculture and sustenance	'Thine is the mercy that cherished our furrows… O sender of rain and the dewfall, we hail thee.'

Why these three, in this order: Sarojini Naidu is not listing gods at random. She is listing everything a crop needs — sunlight, water and soil — and giving each a name and a face. Then the fourth stanza gathers all three into one 'Lord of the Universe'. The poem's structure is, quite literally, the science of growing food turned into worship.

Did you know? Surya and Varuna are among the oldest deities named in the Rigveda, and Prithvi is invoked there as mother earth. The instruments change with the singers too — flute and pipe for the men, drum for the women, and for all voices together, prayer.

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