NCERT Solutions Class 12 English Chapter 10 Trees 2026-27

Quick reading. Dickinson does not describe summer as a broad landscape only. She breaks the day into exact small signs, then lets each sign move, sing, open, or glow.

1. The tassel image gives the trees a light swinging motion.
2. The tune from miniature creatures gives the day a hidden sound track.
3. The psalteries image makes that sound feel like delicate music.
4. The changing sun creates a moving play of brightness and shade.
5. The birds and snake show the day through living creatures.
6. The flowers rising from their calyx bring colour and scent into the frame.
7. The flag image makes blooming look ceremonial and lively.
8. Because the poem includes sight, sound, movement, and scent, it goes beyond painting.

A painter can show one moment. Dickinson makes the student feel a whole summer day changing in time. That is why the poem's verbal picture feels fuller than a canvas.

Dickinson's summer imagery is made from swinging trees, natural music, shifting light, active creatures, opening flowers, and spicy fragrance. The images are vivid because they move and sound as well as look beautiful.

Structural observation. The phrase turns sound into metaphor. Dickinson does not say that insects merely make noise. She hears summer as music played on many hidden instruments.

1. Psalteries are musical instruments, so the word gives the line a sacred and delicate sound.
2. Summer is personified as a season that can produce music.
3. The tiny creatures become musicians in this imagined scene.
4. The ear is charmed, which shows the pleasure of listening.
5. The sound is still remote, so the listener wants more of it.
6. This mixture of nearness and distance deepens the charm.
7. The phrase captures one of Dickinson's main skills: she makes a small natural sound feel magical.

The answer should therefore avoid a bare dictionary meaning. The dictionary explains psaltery, but the poem uses it to express summer's delicate music and the speaker's longing to hear it fully.

The phrase means the musical life of summer. The season's small sounds seem like distant psalteries that charm the ear but remain beyond complete grasp.

Strategic angle. Personification is the poem's way of making observation warmer. The speaker does not only see objects. She sees a small community of actions in nature.

1. The tiny creatures are not passive background details.
2. They seem to accompany the sun, so the day gains rhythm and companionship.
3. The bird on the fence looks careless, which gives it a human attitude.
4. The gossiping bird turns birdsong into social talk.
5. The snake is not just a shape in the landscape; it is charmed by the bright, silver scene.
6. Each creature image adds motion, humour, music, or tenderness to the summer day.

This makes the scene more beautiful because it is not distant scenery. The living creatures behave like companions inside the landscape. The student feels that every small creature has a role in the day's charm.

Dickinson gives human-like action or mood to miniature creatures, birds, and the snake. It beautifies summer by making the day feel active, expressive, musical, and companionable.

Quick reading. The image works because a flower and a flag both display colour. Dickinson adds hindered to show that the display is not instant.

1. A closed flower is first hidden inside the calyx.
2. As it opens, the petals push outward.
3. The stem holds the flower upright, much like a pole holds a flag.
4. A flag rises by human action, while a flower rises by natural growth.
5. Hindered suggests resistance, delay, or difficulty.
6. So the blooming flower seems to fight gently before it is fully seen.
7. The phrase makes the act of flowering dramatic without making it heavy.

The image also suits the poem's summer mood. A flower is a small detail, but Dickinson turns it into a bright signal. The scene becomes full of tiny ceremonies of nature.

The image means that flowers look like colourful flags rising on stems, but their rise is slowed by the calyx. Dickinson uses it to make blooming vivid and active.

Structural observation. The capital letters are not a typing accident. They guide the student to read the sun as a presence with agency.

1. Ordinary grammar would not require capital letters for pronouns referring to the sun.
2. Dickinson chooses capitals to make the sun stand above ordinary description.
3. The sun becomes a character in the summer day.
4. The phrase about being optional suggests choice.
5. The cloud estates suggest possession, shelter, and command.
6. The whim of the sun suggests freedom and mood.
7. This raises the natural image into a spiritual or royal image.

The capitalisation also matches Dickinson's poetic habit. She often uses capitals to stress abstract or natural forces. Here the choice helps the sun dominate the scene without any long explanation.

The capitalised pronouns personify the sun and make it seem majestic. They show the sun as an active power in the summer scene, not just a source of light.

Strategic angle. The poem proves that observation is not mere looking. Dickinson watches small changes until they reveal pattern, movement, and music.

1. The tree image depends on noticing motion, not only shape.
2. The tune from tiny creatures depends on attentive listening.
3. The sun image depends on watching light move in and out of cloud.
4. The bird images depend on noticing posture and sound.
5. The snake image depends on seeing a small curved motion around stone.
6. The flower image depends on knowing how a bud opens from the calyx.
7. The spice image adds scent to sight and movement.
8. These details are ordinary, but Dickinson's comparisons make them newly visible.

The answer should stress this change from observation to art. The poet first notices accurately. Then she chooses images that let the student feel the freshness of the summer day.

Great poetry comes from close observation because exact details become fresh images. Trees, sunlight, creatures, birds, snakes, and flowers are carefully seen, then reshaped into art.

Quick reading. The task asks for observed differences from illustrations. So the best answer compares shape, position, and playing action rather than giving a long history.

1. In an illustration, the psaltery usually appears as a shallow sound box with strings across it.
2. The player often plucks those strings directly.
3. The dulcimer may look wider or more trapezoid in its hammered form.
4. The hammered dulcimer is played with two light hammers, so the hand action is different.
5. A mountain dulcimer has a long narrow body and is often played on the lap.
6. The psaltery's tone suggests a plucked shimmer.
7. The hammered dulcimer's tone suggests a struck ringing pattern.
8. Both instruments help students understand why Dickinson's psalteries image feels musical and delicate.

This comparison also links the language-study task back to the poem. The word psalteries is not casual. It gives summer a refined, string-like sound that differs from ordinary noise.

The two instruments are similar because both use strings and resonance. They differ mainly in shape and technique: the psaltery is generally plucked, while the hammered dulcimer is struck with light hammers.