NCERT Solutions for Class 9th English Chapter 3 Canvas of Soil (poem) — Check Your Understanding

Book page 87–89 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.

I. Read the poem again and complete the summary of each stanza by filling in the blanks. 1. The ______________ is portrayed as a rich palette where gardeners’ __ __ __ a __ s flourish in the form of ______________ , awaiting spring. 2. The garden flowers ______________ into a beautiful display of different b __ __ __ __ __ m s, resembling a ______________ by Mother Nature, in the light of morning. 3. Each garden is likened to a wide __ __ n __ __ s, integrating art and __________. Through the efforts of gardeners, gardens transform into still-life ______________.

Answer

The dashes are letter-counts, so each hinted word is fixed: _ _ _ a _ s is six letters with a fourth and s last; b _ _ _ _ _ m s is eight letters beginning with b; _ _ n _ _ s is six letters with n third and s last.

Stanza	Completed summary	The lines it comes from
1	The earth (soil) is portrayed as a rich palette where gardeners’ dreams flourish in the form of seeds, awaiting spring.	“Palette of earth, rich and deep, / Where dreams of gardeners seep. / Brushstrokes of seeds, planted true, / Awaiting spring’s vibrant hue.”
2	The garden flowers bloom into a beautiful display of different blossoms, resembling a painting (artwork) by Mother Nature, in the light of morning.	“Blossoms bloom, a painted sight, / Dancing in the morning light. / Shades of green, red, and blue, / Nature’s artwork, ever new.”
3	Each garden is likened to a wide canvas, integrating art and life. Through the efforts of gardeners, gardens transform into still-life paintings.	“Each plot, a canvas wide, / Where art and life coincide. / In the hands of those who till, / Gardens become paintings still.”

What the three summaries together reveal: the poem is a single metaphor unfolding in three stages, and the blanks fall exactly on its joints. Stanza 1 is the materials — palette, brushstroke, the picture not yet made. Stanza 2 is the picture appearing — bloom, colour, light. Stanza 3 is the finished work and the maker — canvas, art and life, the hands that till. Fill the blanks and you have not just recalled the poem; you have traced its structure.

Tip: in stanza 2 the first blank must be a verb in the plural (“The garden flowers bloom”) and the third a noun (“a painting by Mother Nature”). Deciding the word class before hunting for the word saves you from writing “blossom” where “bloom” is needed.

Q2.

II. Select the appropriate title for each stanza from those given below. There are two extra titles. 1. Nature’s Work of Art 2. Sweet-smelling Blossoms 3. Gardens as Living Canvases 4. Earth and Possibilities 5. The Painter’s Canvas

Answer

Stanza	Title	Why it fits this stanza and no other
Stanza 1 “Palette of earth… Awaiting spring’s vibrant hue.”	4. Earth and Possibilities	Nothing has happened yet. The stanza holds only raw material and waiting — earth, dreams, seeds, and the word “Awaiting”. That is precisely possibility: what the soil might become when spring comes.
Stanza 2 “Blossoms bloom… Nature’s artwork, ever new.”	1. Nature’s Work of Art	The stanza names it in so many words — “Nature’s artwork, ever new” — and its subject is the finished display of colour, made by Nature rather than by any human hand.
Stanza 3 “Each plot, a canvas wide… Gardens become paintings still.”	3. Gardens as Living Canvases	This is the stanza that states the equation directly — plot = canvas, garden = painting — and the word “living” catches the stanza’s other half, “Where art and life coincide”.

The two extra titles, and why each is rejected:

2. Sweet-smelling Blossoms — the poem never mentions smell at all. Its imagery is entirely visual: colours, brushstrokes, shades, light. A title about fragrance would introduce a sense the poet deliberately leaves out.
5. The Painter’s Canvas — tempting for stanza 3, but it points the wrong way. The poem’s whole argument is that the gardener is the painter and the soil is the canvas; “The Painter’s Canvas” takes us back to a literal studio and loses the metaphor. “Gardens as Living Canvases” keeps both halves.

How to choose a stanza title in an examination: a good title must be true of the whole stanza and false of the other stanzas. Test each candidate both ways. “Nature’s Work of Art” is true of stanza 2 and only loosely of stanza 3, where the maker is human; that is what settles it.

Q3.

III. Match the poetic devices in Column 1 to the examples in Column 2. Discuss your responses in pairs. Then share the responses with your classmates and teacher. Column 1: 1. Imagery [mind pictures] 2. Metaphor [comparison without use of ‘like’ or ‘as’] 3. Rhyme Scheme 4. Tone [what the poet feels] 5. Mood [what the reader feels] 6. Speaker 7. Alliteration [same consonant sound] Column 2: (i) appreciative (ii) AABB (iii) ‘Blossoms bloom’ (iv) colours, brushstrokes, blossoms, shades of green (v) a gardener (vi) garden as a painting, plot as canvas, seeds as brushstrokes (vii) joyful [The book adds: The poem may be interpreted as an allegory. An allegory is a literary device used to express larger ideas than those presented without explicitly stating them. Allegory operates on two levels—the surface meaning and the deeper meaning. Upon considering this poem as an allegory, the garden could symbolise various aspects of life or nature. • Life’s journey and growth • Harmony and diversity]

Answer

1 – (iv), 2 – (vi), 3 – (ii), 4 – (i), 5 – (vii), 6 – (v), 7 – (iii).

Device	Example	How it works in this poem
1. Imagery	(iv) colours, brushstrokes, blossoms, shades of green	All four are things you can see. The poem is almost entirely visual imagery — it never asks you to smell, hear or touch the garden, which is exactly right for a poem that treats the garden as a picture.
2. Metaphor	(vi) garden as a painting, plot as canvas, seeds as brushstrokes	Not one metaphor but a sustained (extended) metaphor running through all twelve lines. Note that no comparison word is used — the poet does not say the plot is like a canvas, she says “Each plot, a canvas wide”.
3. Rhyme Scheme	(ii) AABB	Check it line by line: deep–seep (A A), true–hue (B B); sight–light (A A), blue–new (B B); wide–coincide (A A), till–still (B B). Each stanza is two rhyming couplets.
4. Tone	(i) appreciative	Tone is the poet’s attitude. Every adjective she chooses is a compliment — “rich and deep”, “planted true”, “vibrant”, “a painted sight”, “ever new”. She is admiring the gardener’s work, not merely reporting it.
5. Mood	(vii) joyful	Mood is what the reader is left feeling. Blossoms that are “Dancing in the morning light”, colour arriving after a wait, an artwork that is “ever new” — the reader closes the poem lifted, not thoughtful or sad.
6. Speaker	(v) a gardener	The voice knows the work from inside — that seeds must be “planted true”, that spring must be waited for, that the result lies “In the hands of those who till”. It is not the voice of a visitor admiring a park.
7. Alliteration	(iii) ‘Blossoms bloom’	The repeated b at the start of two neighbouring words. Said aloud, the two soft explosive sounds imitate the opening of buds — sound acting out sense.

The trap in this grid is 4 and 5. Appreciative and joyful are both positive, so they look interchangeable. The book’s own bracket settles it: tone is what the poet feels, mood is what the reader feels. A poet can appreciate something without making the reader joyful; here she does both, but the two labels are not swappable.

Reading the poem as an allegory (page 89): at the surface it is about a garden. At the deeper level, the garden is a life. Seeds “planted true” are efforts made honestly; the wait for spring is the long gap between work and reward; “Shades of green, red, and blue” standing together in one bed are the book’s second suggestion — “the beauty and importance of diversity and harmony in our world”. Read this way, “Gardens become paintings still” says that a life patiently worked at becomes something worth looking at.

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