Chapter: 05. Foreign Lands
Practice Paper: Foreign Lands
A. Answer these questions.
What specific action does the poet take at the very beginning of the poem to begin his adventure? What kind of “places” did the poet discover from his perch that he says he “had never seen before”? Besides the river, what natural feature is mentioned as going “up and down” with people on it? To what body of water does the “grown-up river” eventually flow? What two characteristics make the “fairy land” particularly appealing to children? B. Answer these questions with reference to the context.
“I saw the next door garden lie, / Adorned with flowers, before my eye,”
a. How does the poet’s description of the garden using “adorned with flowers” convey its beauty from his new perspective?
b. What does “before my eye” suggest about the immediate focus of the poet’s vision from the tree? “To where the roads on either hand / Lead onward into fairy land,”
a. What does “on either hand” imply about the direction of the roads the poet is observing?
b. How does the phrase “Lead onward into fairy land” shift the poem from observation to imagination? C. Think and answer.
The poem uses a simple act (climbing a tree) as a springboard for extensive imagination. How does this progression from the mundane to the magical reflect the way a child’s mind often works? If you were the poet climbing the cherry tree today, what everyday object or area in your surroundings might become your first “foreign land” when viewed from above, and what new detail would make it seem extraordinary? Why do you think the poet envisions a place where “all the playthings come alive” in his ideal “fairy land”? What does this tell us about a child’s desires or hopes? 
Practice Paper