The poem 'The Rainbow'

Open your book, Santoor, at page 27 and read the poem 'The Rainbow'. It was written by the poet Christina Rossetti. Read it aloud, or ask someone to read it with you.

Here is what the poem tells, in short. The first part is about things that sail. Boats sail on the rivers, and ships sail on the seas. But the poet says the clouds that sail across the sky are far prettier than these boats and ships.

The second part is about bridges. There are pretty bridges over the rivers. But there is another 'bridge' that is prettier still: the 'bow' in the sky. Here 'bow' means the rainbow, which is curved like a bow. The rainbow stretches across the sky like a bridge across heaven, rises higher than the tops of the trees, and seems to build a road from the earth up to the sky.

So the word 'these' means different things in the two parts. In the first part, 'these' are the boats and ships. In the second part, 'these' are the bridges on the rivers. The poet thinks the clouds and the rainbow, which nature makes, are prettier than the boats, ships and bridges that people make.