Read the following lines from Sukumar Ray's poem, 'The Power of Music' and answer the questions that follow: When summer comes, we hear the hums Bhisma Lochan Sharma. You catch his strain on hill and plain from Delhi down to Burma.
How does the poet describe the billy goat which appears at the end of the poem? What does it do to help bring relief to the suffering people?
Topic: The billy goat
Answer
The billy goat is described as a dead one — an ancient, long-deceased animal that the terrible singing somehow restores to life. It arrives suddenly, roused from the dead by the noise.
It charges straight at Bhisma Lochan Sharma and butts him hard, knocking him over and stopping his song. With the singing silenced at last, the tormented people and creatures are released from their suffering, and the poem ends in relief and gratitude to the goat.
Both halves carry marks: the description (a dead goat brought back to life) and the action (the butting that ends the song). The absurdity is the point — the singing is so bad it raises the dead, and the dead animal succeeds where all the pleading of the living had failed. Say so; it is the poem’s comic climax.