Question

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war!

1. How is the chasm described in these lines?
2. What did Kubla Khan hear from afar?
3. Which sacred river is being referred to in the lines above?
4. What are bursts of water compared to?
5. What does the phrase By woman wailing for demon-lover mean?
6. An apt antonym for the word ‘savage’ is ______.
   1. civilized
   2. vagabond
   3. severe
   4. ferocious

Answer 1

1. The deep chasm slanted down the hill with occasional powerful burst of water.
2. His ancestors’ prophesies of war.
3. River Alph
4. Rebounding hail and chaffy grain
5. A woman in love with a demon who had deserted her. Much distressed by his desertion, she mourns his absence.
6. An apt antonym for the word ‘savage’ is civilised.