Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.
London, Late November
The iron teeth of looms devour the day, (Line 1)
And spit out threads of uniform, dull gray; (Line 2)
While high above the brick-bound, smoky yard, (Line 3)
The sun is but a copper coin, pressed hard (Line 4)
Against the soot-washed canvas of the sky. (Line 5)
No thrushes sing, no wandering breezes sigh (Line 6)
Within these walls where steam-born giants roar, (Line 7)
And shake the boards of this low-ceilinged floor. (Line 8)
Here time is measured not by shadow's crawl, (Line 9)
But by the bell that commands us one and all, (Line 10)
Binding our hands to wheels of spinning brass, (Line 11)
Until the youthful green of fields must pass (Line 12)
To distant dreams, and we ourselves become (Line 13)
But cogs that move, obedient and numb. (Line 14)
In lines 9–11 ('Here time... spinning brass'), how does the description of the setting reflect the historical shift from agrarian life to industrialization?
- AIt expresses the poet's own historical interest in the mechanics of Victorian clocks and textile manufacturing.
- BIt documents the literal breakdown of the factory's timekeeping devices and manufacturing machinery.
- CIt introduces a religious allusion to church bells to highlight the spiritual salvation of the laborers.
- It contrasts the natural, slow passage of time with the rigid, artificial discipline imposed by machinery.Answer
- EIt portrays a speaker who remains indifferent to the shift because they have forgotten their agricultural roots.