Question

Explain the following lines with reference to the poem 'An Elementary Classroom in aSlum':"A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky

Far far from rivers, capes, stars of words". Explain.

Answer 1

"A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky"--It means that the children live in congested narrow streets.They are trapped in a hopeless existence and there seems to be no escape. It symbolises their dark future.

"Far far from rivers, capes, stars of words"-- The words written under the pictures appear like distant stars to the young slum-dwellers. For them the cities displayed in the pictures and the words underneath them are unachievable and faraway as the stars.