NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 4 Harvest Hymn (Sarojini Naidu) — Let us think and reflect

Book page 179 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Why do the farmers hail the God of rain?

Answer

Because without rain there is no crop at all. Varuna is hailed as 'O sender of rain and the dewfall' and thanked for two things in particular: 'Thine is the mercy that cherished our furrows, / Thine is the mercy that fostered our grain.'

Rain softens the furrows so that the plough can work and the seed can take root.
Rain feeds the standing crop through the growing season — it 'fostered', that is, raised and nourished, the grain.
In return the farmers offer 'the wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe' — the harvest that rain made possible.

Why the poem calls it 'mercy' and not 'bounty': The sun comes up every morning whether or not you pray. Rain does not. Indian farming depends on a monsoon that may be early, late or absent altogether — so rain is felt as something granted, and the word for something granted is mercy. Waiting for the Rain, later in this same unit, is the whole story of what happens when that mercy does not come.

Q2.

What is being referred to as 'wealth of our valleys'? Why?

Answer

'The wealth of our valleys' refers to the harvested crop — the grain gathered in from the fields of the valley. The line completes itself: 'The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe.' Garnered means gathered into a granary, so what is being offered is grain only just brought in.

Why the poet calls it 'wealth':

For a farming family the harvest is the wealth — it is food, seed for the next season, and whatever can be sold. There is no other bank.
It answers the previous stanza, where the sun's gift was called 'the gold of our fields'. Gold and wealth belong to the same picture: nature's produce spoken of as treasure.
Calling it wealth makes the offering meaningful. Giving away 'the wealth of our valleys' costs the giver something, which is what turns a gift into a tribute.

Q3.

State one reason why the women refer to the Earth as a 'source of manifold gladness'.

Answer

Because the Earth gives them not one kind of happiness but many — manifold means of many kinds. She feeds her children ('the plentiful bosom that feeds us'), she brings forth all their riches ('the womb where our riches have birth'), and she gives them the flowers, fruit and grain they are now carrying back to her as garlands and tribute. Food, prosperity and beauty come from the same source, so the gladness she causes is of many sorts at once.

Why the women sing this stanza: Sarojini Naidu gives the Earth to the women's voices deliberately. The Earth is addressed as 'sweet and omnipotent mother' with a bosom and a womb — a mother speaking to a mother. The stanza's instrument, the drum, is the deepest and steadiest of the three, which suits the one power in the poem you can stand on.

Tip: The question asks for one reason. Give one clearly and support it with the line, rather than listing four reasons thinly.

Q4.

Why does everyone in the poem offer their 'labours for tribute'?

Answer

Because by the last stanza they have nothing left that is worth more. Follow what is offered as the poem goes on:

Stanza 1 → 'our songs and our garlands'
Stanza 2 → 'our thanks and our garlands'
Stanza 3 → 'our love and our garlands'
Stanza 4 → 'our lives and our labours'

The gift grows more costly at every step, from a song to a life. Offering their labour means:

Acknowledging where the harvest came from. They have just called God 'the Seed and the Scythe of our harvests' — if the beginning and the end are His, then the work in between is His too.
Giving the only thing that is truly theirs. A farmer's labour is his year: ploughing, sowing, weeding, watering, reaping. Offering it is offering himself.
Asking for the next year. The very next line is 'Grant us thy succour, thy counsel, thy care.' The offering and the request belong together — this is a hymn sung at the end of one harvest and the beginning of another.

Q5.

Why has the poet presented the poem as voices of men, women, and all voices?

Answer

Because a harvest is brought in by a whole village, and Sarojini Naidu wants the poem to sound like a whole village. Presenting it in three voices does four things at once:

It makes the poem performable. Laid out like a script, it can actually be sung in parts at a festival — men, then women, then everyone.
It divides the praise sensibly. Men's Voices address the powers of the sky, Surya and Varuna. Women's Voices address the Earth as 'mother', a woman speaking to a woman. Each group praises what it is closest to.
It builds to a climax. Two solo groups, then everybody. The fourth stanza is louder and larger simply because more people are singing it — and it is the stanza addressed to the Lord of the Universe, so the swell of voices matches the swell of the subject.
It says something about community. Farming is shared work. No single 'I' appears anywhere in the poem; every pronoun is 'we', 'our', 'us'. The form and the meaning agree: the harvest belongs to everyone, so the thanksgiving must too.

Why it also matters historically: Sarojini Naidu wrote and spoke in the years of the national movement, and much of her poetry gathers many Indian voices into one. A hymn in which men and women praise separately and then together is, quietly, a picture of a people acting as one.

Q6.

How does the poet create the joyous atmosphere of rural India at harvesting time?

Answer

She builds it out of five ordinary materials, and never once uses the word 'happy'.

What she uses	Examples from the poem	Effect
Sound and music	'with cymbal and flute', 'with cymbal and pipe', 'with cymbal and drum'	we hear a procession before we see one
Colour and light	'the gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit', 'Bright and munificent lord of the morn', 'lord of the rainbow'	a bright, golden, morning scene
Plenty	'new-garnered and ripe', 'the plentiful bosom', 'thy opulent giving', 'manifold gladness'	abundance in almost every line
Ritual objects	garlands, tribute, the lotus, the gourd-flower	the familiar sight of an Indian festival
Many voices and repetition	Men's, Women's and All Voices; 'We bring thee…', 'we hail thee, / We praise thee…'	the rhythm of a crowd chanting together

Why it works: Joy in this poem is never stated — it is produced. Sarojini Naidu appeals to the ear (cymbals, drums), the eye (gold, rainbow, flowers) and the sense of plenty, and then repeats her phrases until the reader is carried along by the rhythm. That is the difference between describing a celebration and putting the reader inside one.

Q7.

Why is the poem presented as a hymn?

Answer

Because a hymn is a song of praise offered to a divine power, and that is exactly what these farmers are doing — so the form and the content are the same thing.

Its subject is thanksgiving. The poem's business from beginning to end is to praise Surya, Varuna, Prithvi and Brahma and to thank them for the harvest.
Its language is the language of worship. 'Thou', 'thee', 'thy', 'thine' — the old reverent forms — and the address 'O Surya', 'O Prithvi', 'O Bramha'. Modern 'you' would sound wrong at once.
Its structure is a chant. Every stanza opens the same way, offers a tribute in the fifth line, and closes with 'we hail thee, / We praise thee, O …, with cymbal and …'. Repetition of this kind exists so that a crowd can join in.
It is written for many voices and for instruments — men's, women's and all voices, with cymbal, flute, pipe, drum and finally prayer.
It ends with a petition, as hymns traditionally do: 'Grant us thy succour, thy counsel, thy care.'

The deeper reason: By choosing the hymn, Sarojini Naidu makes an argument without stating it. Farming is not treated as a job that produces goods, but as a relationship with living powers who must be thanked. The harvest is a gift, not a wage — and the whole unit's theme of respecting the natural world follows from that one choice of form.

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