The Laburnum Top Class 11th

 The Laburnum Top Poem Explanation

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

Laburnum – a short tree with hanging branches, yellow flowers, and poisonous seeds In the above lines, the poet says that he saw a Laburnum tree whose leaves were yellow. The tree’s top is still and silent in the day time of September month. It is autumn season and all the seeds of the tree had fallen. The poet has used the word ‘yellow’ for leaves and sunlight. Yellow symbolizes silence, death, and beauty. He describes the whole scene of the tree with this colour. Till the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup A suddenness, a startlement, at a branch end. Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt, She enters the thickness, and a machine starts up Of chitterlings, and a tremor of wings, and trillings — The whole tree trembles and thrills. Goldfinch – a small singing birds with yellow feathers on its wings Twitching – sudden jerk movement Chirrup – a bird making repeated high pitched sounds Startlement – feeling or showing sudden shock Abrupt – rapid Chitterlings – to make a chattering sound Tremor of wings – involuntary vibration of the wings Trilling – to produce a chirruping sound Trembles – to shake Thrills – a sudden feeling of excitement

A Goldfinch bird comes to end the death-like scene of the tree and makes a sudden chirrup sound. The bird while being rapid, alert and precautions like a lizard, sits on the branches of the tree. As she moved towards the thickness of the branch, her younger ones started chirruping and doing vibrations with wings, making a sound like a machine. Because of the movement of the bird and her young ones, the tree starts to shake and thrill. The poet has given two opposite scenarios of the tree. The tree first being death-like and still and then giving life and shelter to bird and her young ones.

It is the engine of her family. She stokes it full, then flirts out to a branch-end Showing her barred face identity mask Flirts out – lead on to Stokes – to add fuel to the engine Barred – stripy The Laburnum tree and the goldfinch bird is the engine of her family. She provides food to her young ones and moves to the other branch end. Her dark coloured striped face is visible as her body is yellow coloured and hides behind the yellow leaves of the tree.

Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup whisperings She launches away, towards the infinite And the laburnum subsides to empty. Eerie – weird and strange Whistle-chirrup – gentle whisper like the chirping of the bird Subsides – diminishes After reaching the end of the branch, the bird makes a sweet chirping sound just like whispering and flies away towards the infinite sky. It again makes the Laburnum tree silent and death-like.