Class 10 English · Original EZT practice
The Trees - Adrienne Rich (Class 10 English, First Flight)
The Trees is a short free-verse poem by the American poet Adrienne Rich, printed in Class 10 First Flight (Reprint 2026-27, pp. 77-78) after the chapter Glimpses of India. In four unrhymed stanzas, house-plants strain, break the glass and move out of a house to rejoin the empty forest by morning. Students read it both as nature breaking out of confinement and, using a metaphor the poet often returned to, as people freeing themselves from what holds them in. This page gives a stanza-wise summary, theme, devices, word meanings and fresh practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 24 October 2026:
1. Stanza-wise summary
Stanza 1 (7 lines): the trees inside the house are moving out into the forest - 'the forest that was empty all these days / where no bird could sit / no insect hide / no sun bury its feet in shadow'. By morning the long-empty forest 'will be full of trees'. Stanza 2 (9 lines): all night the roots work 'to disengage themselves from the cracks / in the veranda floor'. Leaves 'strain toward the glass', twigs are 'stiff with exertion', and the long-cramped boughs shuffle under the roof 'like newly discharged patients / half-dazed, moving / to the clinic doors'. Stanza 3 (8 lines): the speaker sits inside with 'doors open to the veranda', writing long letters in which she scarcely mentions 'the departure of the forest from the house'. The night is fresh, 'the whole moon shines / in a sky still open', and 'the smell of leaves and lichen / still reaches like a voice into the rooms'. Stanza 4 (8 lines): her head is 'full of whispers / which tomorrow will be silent'. Then it happens: 'Listen. The glass is breaking. / The trees are stumbling forward / into the night.' Winds rush to meet them, and 'the moon is broken like a mirror, / its pieces flash now in the crown / of the tallest oak'.
2. Theme - nature refuses confinement
Nature refuses confinement: plants kept inside push back to the forest where they belong. A second reading the textbook itself invites: the trees can stand for human beings breaking out of whatever imprisons them (First Flight pairs this poem with A Tiger in the Zoo for the confinement comparison). And there is silence around big change: the speaker barely mentions the departure in her letters, as if people stay quiet about events too unexpected to name.
3. Poetic devices, form and word meanings
Personification runs through the poem: trees 'moving out', roots that 'work', leaves that 'strain toward the glass'. Simile: boughs shuffling 'like newly discharged patients'; 'the moon is broken like a mirror'. Imagery: 'no sun bury its feet in shadow'; 'the smell of leaves and lichen ... reaches like a voice into the rooms'. Form: free verse - four stanzas of 7, 9, 8 and 8 lines with no end-rhyme scheme, so do not invent a rhyme scheme for this poem in exams. Word meanings from the textbook gloss: disengage themselves - to separate themselves; strain - make efforts to move; bough - branch; shuffling - moving repeatedly from one position to another; lichen - crusty patches or bushy growth on tree trunks or bare ground, formed by association of a fungus and an alga.
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
List what the empty forest lacks
Choose the method: Three missing things.
EZT practice question
In the first stanza, name the three things that cannot happen in a forest without trees.
Show the worked solution
- Find the lines describing 'the forest that was empty all these days'.
- The poem lists three absences in a row.
- 'where no bird could sit / no insect hide / no sun bury its feet in shadow'.
Answer: No bird could sit, no insect hide, and no sun could bury its feet in shadow - the three things that cannot happen in a forest without trees.
Check: All three begin with 'no' - bird, insect, sun.
Watch for this: Do not paraphrase the list down to 'animals and light' - the three images are the answer.
Now try it yourself
What will the forest be like by morning?
Check your answer
'The forest that was empty all these nights / will be full of trees by morning.'
The empty-to-full contrast is the poem's whole movement.
Track the night work
Choose the method: Every part pushes.
EZT practice question
What are the roots, leaves and twigs doing during the night?
Show the worked solution
- Roots 'work / to disengage themselves from the cracks / in the veranda floor'.
- Leaves 'strain toward the glass'.
- Small twigs go 'stiff with exertion' while the long-cramped boughs shuffle under the roof.
Answer: The roots work to disengage themselves from the cracks in the veranda floor, the leaves strain toward the glass, and the small twigs go stiff with exertion while the long-cramped boughs shuffle under the roof.
Check: One action per part: roots work, leaves strain, twigs stiffen.
Watch for this: Do not say the trees are sleeping - the whole stanza is effort, all night.
Now try it yourself
Why does the poem say 'all night'?
Check your answer
Because the escape is slow, continuous work - the roots work 'all night' before the glass breaks.
Duration turns a plant's growth into a deliberate effort.
Explain the patients simile
Choose the method: Stiff after confinement.
EZT practice question
What does the poet compare the moving boughs to, and why is the comparison apt?
Show the worked solution
- The boughs shuffle under the roof 'like newly discharged patients'.
- They are 'half-dazed, moving / to the clinic doors'.
- Both move stiffly and slowly after long confinement - patients after a hospital stay, boughs after a cramped life under the roof.
Answer: The boughs are compared to newly discharged patients, half-dazed, moving to the clinic doors - apt because both move stiffly and slowly as they leave a long confinement.
Check: Name the compared object first, then the shared quality (stiff, dazed release).
Watch for this: Do not call it personification - the marker 'like' makes it a simile.
Now try it yourself
Which words show the boughs are still weak?
Check your answer
'Half-dazed' and 'shuffling' - they move like people who have not walked in a long time.
Weakness underlines how long the confinement lasted.
Contrast the two moons
Choose the method: Whole then broken.
EZT practice question
How is the moon described at the start of stanza 3 and at the end of the poem, and what causes the change?
Show the worked solution
- At first 'the whole moon shines / in a sky still open'.
- At the end 'the moon is broken like a mirror, / its pieces flash now in the crown / of the tallest oak'.
- The change is caused by the trees moving out - the rising crown of the tallest oak shatters the moon's image into flashing pieces.
Answer: First 'the whole moon shines / in a sky still open'; at the end it 'is broken like a mirror', its pieces flashing in the tallest oak's crown - the change comes as the trees move out and the oak's crown breaks the moon's image.
Check: Quote both moons, then name the cause (the rising trees).
Watch for this: Do not say the moon literally breaks - the simile 'like a mirror' keeps it an image shattered by branches.
Now try it yourself
What does the breaking glass announce?
Check your answer
'Listen. The glass is breaking. / The trees are stumbling forward / into the night' - the moment of escape.
Sound arrives before sight in the poem's climax.
Read the speaker's silence
Choose the method: Big change, few words.
EZT practice question
Why does the speaker scarcely mention the departure of the forest in her letters?
Show the worked solution
- She sits inside 'writing long letters' in which she 'scarcely' mentions the departure.
- Her head is 'full of whispers / which tomorrow will be silent'.
- A supported reading: people often stay silent about important happenings so unexpected they are hard to say - this is an open question, so anchor the answer in the poem's own quiet.
Answer: She scarcely mentions it because the event feels too unexpected to name - a supported reading is that people often stay silent about important happenings that are hard to put into words, which is why her head is 'full of whispers / which tomorrow will be silent'.
Check: Mark it as a reading, not a fact - the poem leaves the reason open.
Watch for this: Do not say she did not notice - 'the smell of leaves and lichen / still reaches like a voice into the rooms' shows she senses everything.
Now try it yourself
What still reaches into the rooms as she writes?
Check your answer
'The smell of leaves and lichen / still reaches like a voice into the rooms.'
The forest speaks even while she does not.
Name the form honestly
Choose the method: No rhyme to find.
EZT practice question
What form is The Trees written in, and what should you never invent for it in an exam?
Show the worked solution
- The poem has four stanzas of 7, 9, 8 and 8 lines.
- There is no end-rhyme scheme - it is free verse.
- So never invent a rhyme scheme for this poem in exams; its music comes from image and personification instead.
Answer: Free verse: four unrhymed stanzas of 7, 9, 8 and 8 lines with no end-rhyme scheme - so never invent a rhyme scheme for it in an exam; its music comes from image and personification.
Check: Count the stanza lines (7, 9, 8, 8) before answering questions about form.
Watch for this: Do not force an ABAB pattern onto unrhymed lines - the poem is free verse by design.
Now try it yourself
Which device carries the poem if rhyme does not?
Check your answer
Personification - trees 'moving out', roots that 'work', leaves that 'strain toward the glass'.
The devices give the free verse its shape.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. The three things missing in a treeless forest?
Show answer and reason
No bird could sit, no insect hide, no sun bury its feet in shadow.
Three 'no' images define emptiness.
2. The boughs move like?
Show answer and reason
Newly discharged patients, half-dazed, moving to the clinic doors.
Stiff release after long confinement.
3. The moon at the end?
Show answer and reason
Broken like a mirror, its pieces flashing in the tallest oak's crown.
The rising trees shatter the moon's image.
4. The poem's form?
Show answer and reason
Free verse - four stanzas of 7, 9, 8 and 8 lines, no rhyme scheme.
Never invent a rhyme scheme for it.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- Explain in two sentences why 'newly discharged patients' is the right comparison for the boughs.
- Contrast the 'whole moon' of stanza 3 with the 'broken' moon of stanza 4 in your own words.
- Find three personifications in the poem and say what each one makes the trees feel like.
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Questions about this practice page
- Is The Trees a rhyming poem?
- No. It is free verse in four stanzas with no regular end-rhyme.
- Which chapter number is The Trees in Class 10 First Flight?
- In the Reprint 2026-27 printing, poems sit between the numbered prose chapters and are not numbered as chapters themselves; The Trees is printed after Glimpses of India. Always follow your own textbook's contents page.
- What is the central idea of The Trees?
- Confined trees reclaim the forest - read as nature resisting captivity, and by metaphor as people freeing themselves from confinement.
- Who wrote The Trees and what is she known for?
- Adrienne Rich (born Baltimore, 1929), author of nearly twenty volumes of poetry, described as a feminist and radical poet.
- What poetic devices are used in The Trees?
- Personification (trees 'moving out', roots that 'work'), simile ('like newly discharged patients', 'the moon is broken like a mirror') and imagery ('the smell of leaves and lichen'), in free verse with no rhyme scheme.