Solved Textbook : Workbook Answers/Solutions of A Collection of ICSE Poems and Short Stories, If Thou Must Love Me by

I. (i) The words ‘let it be for nought’ mean let it be for nothing. The speakers wants to tell her lover not to love her for any particular reason. The speaker wants her lover to love her for love’s sake only.

(ii)She does not want to be loved for her smile, her looks or for her gentle voice.

(iii)She does not want her lover to love her for particular traits like her appearance and good looks because these traits will fade with the passage of time.

(iv)
(a) a trick of thought means a particular way of thinking, which may mislead her lover.
(b) A sense of pleasant ease on such a day means the qualities which may give a sense of comfort to her lover on a particular day.

(v)Cumulative listing is a technique of listing similar ideas to
explain or add examples to a particular statement. The example of cumulative listing in the given extract is:
The speaker enumerates her physical characteristics — her smile, her looks and her gentle way of speaking — for which she does not want to be loved, as these characteristics are changeable and not ever lasting.

II.

(i) ‘these things’ refer to the traits like her smile, her looks and her gentle way of speaking, for which the speaker does not want her lover to love her.

(ii)By the statement, “may/Be changed, or change for thee”, the speaker wants to tell her lover not to love her for the traits like her smile, her looks or her way of speaking as these traits may change with the passage of time or his appreciation of these traits would fade in their appeal for him.

(iii) The speaker does not want to be affected by these changes because there is much more to love than these changeable traits. She wants to be loved for true love and not her superficial qualities that would change with the passage of time.

(iv) The theme of the poem is unconditional love. In the poem, the speaker asks her lover not to love her for the qualities like her beautiful smile, her looks or her gentle voice. She recognises that though these qualities may be endearing to him, but would fade away in their appeal to him with the passage of time. However, true love is unconditional and not dependent on such changeable physical traits. She wants his love for her should be eternal.

(v) The statement “love, so wrought/May be unwrought so” means that love that is based on changeable traits may change or diminish with the changes in these traits with the passage of time. Here, the speaker feels that if her lover loves her for only those traits, his love for her would diminish, when her physical traits would fade away.

III.
(i) The words “dear pity” refer to the pity the speaker’s lover feels for her.
The words “wiping my cheeks dry” means the act of wiping off tears from my cheeks. Here, the speaker wants to tell her lover that she does not want to be loved out of pity. She says that she might not cry and since there would be no tears to be wiped off from her cheeks, she may not be able to produce pity for her in her lover.

(ii) The word “creature” is used here for the speaker. It is so called to compare here position with something similar like a whimpering dog or a flopping bird, which instantly invokes pity in human beings.

(iii) If the creature forgets to weep, the lover would not feel any pity for her. This is because she won’t have any tears to be wiped off from her cheeks and so would not be able to induce any pity for herself in her lover.

(iv) The word “Thy” is used for the speaker’s lover.

(v) The poet does not want to be loved out of pity because she believes that pity on her tears will be lost once she is consoled.

IV.

(i) The poet wants to be loved for love’s sake only because in that way she will always be loved no matter what qualities of her fade away with time.

(ii)The words “through love’s eternity” mean love that is eternal or ever lasting. The speaker wants that her lover’s love for her should be eternal.

(iii) Love has been personified in these lines by giving love, humanly traits such as possession (love’s sake) and a time frame (love’s eternity).

(iv) The speaker of the poem, a woman, demands equal status with a man by asking her lover not to love her for her physical attributes or out of pity but for what she is — a living, thinking human being.

(v)The things which I like in the poem are the following:
(a) The speaker’s demand for unconditional love, the love which is not based on any superficial qualities that fade away with the passage of time but the love which is eternal.
(b) The speaker’s demand for equal status with men. She does not want to be loved out of pity but for what she is — a living, thinking human being.

(vi) The poem, ‘If Thou Must Love Me’ is a sonnet because:
(a) it comprises fourteen lines with a formal rhyming scheme in iambic pentameter, i.e., abba/abba/cdc/dc [d/e].
(b) it is a hybrid of both Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets. In rhyming scheme, it is composed of a Petrarchan octet (eight lines) with the rhyming scheme abba abba and sestet (six lines) with the rhyming scheme cdcdcd or cdecde. However, in its content, it follows the Shakespearean structure of three quatrains (4 + 4 + 4 = 12 lines) and the final resolving couplets.

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