Complete the crossword puzzle using words from the poem below:
Walking Away: C. Day Lewis
for sean
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away 5
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be. 10
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take—the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay. 15
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
Across
4. Walking style (stanza 2)
6. A quality that arouses pity and sadness
(stanza 2)
10. Difficult experiences (stanza 3)
11. Circular swirling (stanza 3)
15. Uncertain, doubtful (stanza 3)
16. Communicate, tell (stanza 3)
Down
1. Burning ((stanza 3)
2. Wasteland (stanza 2)
3. Violently removed (stanza 1)
5. An object that circles around a bigger
object (stanza 1)
7. A bird that hasn’t got all its feathers yet
(stanza 2)
8. Knowing yourself (stanza 4)
9. To produce excessive anxiety of worry (stanza 4)
10. Path of a satellite (stanza 1)
12. To understand (stanza 3)
13. Lines on a soccer field (stanza 1)
14. Slow, uncertain (stanza 3)
About the poem
The speaker is remembering how 18 years ago he was at his son’s first soccer match, and he watched his young son walk away from him towards the school. Suddenly he realized with a wave of sadness that his son was growing up. His son was becoming independent and going towards a future his father could not control. The speaker then realises that this is the meaning of love: you have to let the person go to find out who they are, and what their path is.
(Love Poem For My Country, Maskew Miller Longman Pg 237)
Questions
1. Who is Sean?
2. Who is he walking away from?
3. According to stanza 1, at which time of the year did this incident take place? Name the season of the year. Quote 3 CONSECUTIVE WORDS from stanza 1 to support your answer.
4. Do you think this incident took place at the beginning of the soccer season? Quote a phrase of no more than 3 words from stanza 1 to support your answer.
5. Which figure of speech is used in lines 4 – 5? Is it a simile or a metaphor? Which two things are being compared?
6. Which word in stanza 2 contributes to the tone of sadness?
7. Which figure of speech is used in line 8? Is it a simile of a metaphor? Which two things are being compared?
8. Does the son know beyond all reason of doubt that he is doing the right thing to walk away from his father? Find evidence in stanza 3 to support your answer.
9. According to stanza 3, does the father understand why he has to let go of his son?
Quote 6 CONSECUTIVE WORDS from stanza 3 to support your answer.
10. In stanza 4 the speaker says this incident still “gnaws at (his) mind”. What do you think he means?
Possible Answers
Crossword Puzzle
Across
4. gait
6 pathos
10. ordeals
11. eddying
15. irresolute
16. convey
Down
1. scorching
2. wilderness
3. wrenched
5. satellite
7. Half-fledged
8. selfhood
9. gnaws
10. orbit
12. grasp
13. touch-lines
14. hesitant
1. The speaker/poet’s son
2. His father
3. Autumn – “leaves just turning”
4. At the beginning – “”touch-lines new-ruled”/ “first game of football”
5. Simile – the boy leaving, a satellite wrenched from its orbit
6. “pathos”
7. Metaphor – the boy, a young bird
8. No – he is hesitant
9. No – “I never quite grasp to convey”
10. He cannot forget it/ it’s on his conscience/ it’s bothering him.