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Ch 5The Laburnum Top — Class 11 English (Core), concept-first.

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) was one of the most celebrated English poets of the twentieth century and served as Britain's Poet Laureate. He is especially famous for his poems about nature, birds and animals, in which he watches the natural world with an unusually sharp and physical eye and captures its energy in vivid, musc…

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Concepts

31m

Section weightage

Section C · Literature Textbooks (Hornbill & Snapshots) · across all 16 lessons

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Key concepts

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Poem Imagery Analysis

When you read a poem, the words don't just sit on the page — they paint pictures, trigger smells, make you feel textures, and sometimes even create sounds in your head. That's imagery at work.

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Chapter contents

The NCERT structure, section by section. Open a section to see its questions, then read the concept-first solution.

About the Poet and the Poem

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) was one of the most celebrated English poets of the twentieth century and served as Britain's Poet Laureate.

1.1

Central Idea and Summary

The central idea of the poem is the sudden transformation of a still, seemingly lifeless tree into a place full of life and energy the moment a mother goldfinch arrives to feed her chicks — and its re…

1.2

Stanza-wise Explanation

"The Laburnum top is silent, quite still / In the afternoon yellow September sunlight, / A few leaves yellowing, all its seeds fallen."

1.3

Poetic Devices

A simile compares two things using as or like. Hughes writes that the goldfinch is "sleek as a lizard", comparing her smooth, quick, alert movements to those of a lizard.

1.4

Theme and Message

The poem's central theme is the interdependence of life in nature — how a single living creature can pour energy and meaning into a still, lifeless thing, and how the two are bound together.

Summary

- Poet: Ted Hughes — a leading English poet and Poet Laureate, famous for nature and animal poems. - Setting: A garden on a still, yellow September afternoon.

Find out

+Find outi2 questions
  1. Q1What laburnum is called in your language.Free
  2. Q2Which local bird is like the goldfinch.Preview

Think it out

+Think it outi5 questions
  1. Q1What do you notice about the beginning and the ending of the poem?Free
  2. Q2To what is the bird's movement compared? What is the basis for the comparison?Free
  3. Q3Why is the image of the engine evoked by the poet?Preview
  4. Q4What do you like most about the poem?Preview
  5. Q5What does the phrase “her barred face identity mask” mean?Preview

Note down

+Note downi3 questions
  1. Q1the sound wordsFree
  2. Q2the movement wordsPreview
  3. Q3the dominant colour in the poem.Preview

List the following

+List the followingi3 questions
  1. Q1Words which describe ‘sleek’, ‘alert’ and ‘abrupt’.Free
  2. Q2Words with the sound ‘ch’ as in ‘chart’ and ‘tr’ as in ‘trembles’ in the poem.Preview
  3. Q3Other sounds that occur frequently in the poem.Preview

Thinking about Language

+Thinking about Languagei1 question
  1. Q1Look for some other poem on a bird or a tree in English or any other language.Preview

Try this out

+Try this outi1 question
  1. Q1Write four lines in verse form on any tree that you see around you.Preview

Additional Practice

Extra exam-style practice questions written by us on this lesson — beyond the NCERT textbook's own exercises — for more CBSE board-exam preparation.

+Additional Practicei14 questions
  1. Q1What picture of the laburnum tree does the poet present at the opening of the poem? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Free
  2. Q2How does the arrival of the goldfinch transform the silent laburnum tree? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Free
  3. Q3Why does the poet compare the goldfinch's movement into the tree to that of a lizard? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Free
  4. Q4What happens inside the tree the moment the mother bird reaches her nest? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  5. Q5In what sense is the goldfinch the engine of her family? What does she do to 'stoke' it? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  6. Q6What does the poet mean by the bird's 'identity mask', and when do we glimpse it? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  7. Q7How does the poem end? What becomes of the laburnum once the goldfinch launches away towards the infinite? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  8. Q8What is the significance of the September afternoon setting in the poem? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  9. Q9How does Ted Hughes use sound in the poem to mark the difference between stillness and life? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  10. Q10Discuss the machine and engine imagery in 'The Laburnum Top'. How does comparing the nest-filled tree to a machine that the goldfinch starts…Preview
  11. Q11Bring out the central idea of 'The Laburnum Top'. How does Ted Hughes use a single fleeting incident on a September afternoon to reflect on…Preview
  12. Q12Examine the chief poetic devices used in 'The Laburnum Top' — simile, metaphor, personification, imagery and sound effects — and show, with…Preview
  13. Q13Explain the opening and closing movements of the poem. How does the frame of silence — the still tree at the start and the tree subsiding to…Preview
  14. Q14'The goldfinch is the animating spirit of the laburnum.' Discuss the theme of the mother bird's selfless energy and the interdependence of l…Preview