This poem borrows some ideas from the poem “Tithonus”. Who wrote this?
Browning
Keats
Tennyson
According to legend, what happened to Tithonus?
He was doomed to age and wither but never die
He fell in love with the Goddess Aurora
He was frozen to death
In the poem, what does the direction West represent?
Dawn breaking and new life
The sun setting and the end of life
The season of winter
What is the setting depicted in this poem?
A valley in the Summer
A forest in the Autumn
A frozen pond in Winter
What is the swan described as in the opening lines?
Eternal youth
A ghost
Summer
What colour does the poet search for in the frozen pond?
Blue
White
Black
What happens to the skaters on the pond?
They skate on through the night, oblivious to the darkness creeping in
They don’t realise how thin the ice is and one of them falls through it
They desert the pond once the sun sets
What does the dual-carriageway represent?
The linear journey of birth to death
The change in seasons
The reversal of time
What is the ice covering the pond symbolic of?
Purgatory
Heaven
The barrier separating the living from the dead
Which of these statements best sums up the mood of this poem?
Bleak and pessimistic
Convivial and hopeful
Sinister and threatening