Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.
The frost has mapped the windowpane in lines
As sharp and cold as geometric law,
Locking the garden’s skeletal designs
In winter’s pale, unyielding grip and claw.
(5) No bird disputes the silence of the lawn;
The sky is iron, pressed against the clay.
We watch the light, by early shadows drawn,
Relinquish what remains of sterile day.
And yet, the hearthfire stirs a sudden scent
(10) Of summer pine, or cedar split in June—
A fragrance that, by some strange accident,
Restores the warmth of that high afternoon
When we ran wild through fields of clover-gold,
Forgetful of the dark, and of the cold.
In the poem, which of the following best describes the function of the transition in line 9 ("And yet...")?
- AIt introduces a sudden conflict between the speaker's appreciation of winter and their fear of seasonal change.
- BIt reveals the poet's biographical desire to escape the coldness of their domestic life through artistic creation.
- CIt establishes a sensory contrast that highlights the speaker's inability to distinguish between reality and illusion.
- It marks a shift from a detached observation of a bleak present to a nostalgic remembrance of a vibrant past.Answer
- EIt cuts off the flow of the description abruptly, suggesting that the speaker's thoughts are fragmented and disorganized.