English for Life Core Reader
Grade 5
Home Language
Hanna Erasmus • Lynne Southey
www.bestbooks.co.za
Pretoria • Cape Town
The sheep
Ann and Jane Taylor
“Lazy sheep, pray tell me why
In the pleasant fields you lie,
Eating grass, and daisies white,
From the morning till the night?
Everything can something do,
But what kind of use are you?”
“Nay, my little master, nay,
Do not serve me so, I pray;
Don’t you see the wool that grows
On my back, to make you clothes?
Cold, and very cold, you’d be
If you had not wool from me.
True, it seems a pleasant thing,
To nip the daisies in the spring;
But many chilly nights I pass
On the cold and dewy grass,
Or pick a scanty dinner, where
All the common’s brown and bare.
Then the farmer comes at last,
When the merry spring is past,
And cuts my woolly coat away,
To warm you in the winter’s day:
Little master, this is why
In the pleasant fields I lie.”
1. There are two narrators in the poem. Who are they?
2. What characteristic does the boy give to the sheep? Why?
3. “Do not serve me so” – Rewrite this in your own words.
4. Besides their wool, what other uses do sheep have?
5. In stanza 3, the sheep mentions three bad things that he has to endure. What are they?
6. Use a dictionary and choose the meaning from column B to match the expression in column A.
Vocabulary
pray – please
nip – bite off sharply
scanty – slumpy, scarcely enough
common’s brown and bare – the pasture where all the sheep graze is without green grass, there is no food
The most magnificent fishing
Robert D. Hoeft
Stars swim in the heavens
Like fish of sparkling light
So I am going fishing
To catch some stars tonight.
I’ll make a line of spider webs
And bait my hook with gold.
I’ll wrap myself in blankets,
For the nights get awfully cold.
And I will sit ’til sunrise
As patient as can be,
Pulling shiny silver stars
Out of the moon-drenched sea.
1. In stanza 1, line 2 the poet uses a simile to describe the stars. Quote the simile. To what does the poet compare the stars?
2. Write down two consecutive words that describe the brightness of the stars.
3. What plan does the poet make to catch some stars?
4. The poet says that he is patient. How do we know he is telling the truth?
5. Someone who has confidence is confident. Complete the following. Someone who:
a) has courage is . . .
b) dominates others is . . .
c) shows aggression is . . .
d) shows affection is . . .
Vocabulary
bait – something used to lure a fish to your hook
moon-drenched sea – it seems as if the sea is totally filled with the reflection of the moon
Answer to a child’s question
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove,
The Linnet and Thrush say, “I love and I love!”
In the winter they’re silent – the wind is so strong;
What it says, I don’t know, but it sings a loud
