Gul Mohar English Class 7 Poem - A Sea of Foliage

Gul Mohar Edition 9 Orient Blackswan

Gul Mohar English Poem - A Sea of Foliage

Writer of the poem - Toru Dutt

Summary

This is a nature poem, written to express the poet's admiration of a garden. The garden is full of trees, and thus, whichever way one turns, an abundance of leaves meets the eye. Hence the title of the poem-'A Sea of Foliage'.

However, the poet goes on to elaborate that the foliage is not of a single monotonous green; it comprises a variety of colours that makes the garden look extraordinarily beautiful. The tamarind leaves are light green; the mango leaves are darker; the trunk of the palm trees look grey amid the green; and then there is the bright red of the seemul trees.

However, even more beautiful than these colours is the sight of the moon peeping through the bamboo trees in the evening, and the white lotus shining as bright as a silver cup in the moonlight. It is that sight which reminds the poet of the pristine Garden of Eden.

The poem asks the reader to imagine the garden at two times-day, when the different colours of the trees are clearly visible, and night, when the moon and the moonlight transform the scene. It also asks the reader to look at this garden both from side to side (to appreciate the 'sea' of foliage) and from up to down (from the moon to the lotus on the pond).

The poet uses similes to explain how the different trees look, comparing palm tree trunks to pillars and, in a more unusual comparison, the red colour of seemuls to the sound of trumpets. She emphasises the magical quality of the garden's beauty by comparing it to Eden, which can only be imagined; and by stressing how amazed she feels at the beauty, as if it is hard to believe.