Read the poem and answer the questions given below it.
Notifications at Midnight
At midnight, when the house is dark and still,
and Amma’s door is shut across the hall,
my phone begins to buzz on the window sill
and throws a square of blue light on the wall.
“You up?” from Rohan. Someone shares a reel.
The class group argues over Monday’s sum.
A streak of thirty days I must not break,
a sale that ends at two. And on they come.
The phone lies warm and heavy in my hand,
my thumb is sore from sliding up the glass,
the sheet is hot and crumpled at my back,
and still I let another hour pass.
At one I turn the screen face down. And then
the old, plain dark comes back, so soft and deep.
I turn my weary pillow to its cool side,
and hear the fan, and slowly fall asleep.
What is the rhyme scheme of the first stanza of the poem?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → ABAB
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming words at the ends of the lines: each new end sound gets a new letter, and a line that rhymes with an earlier line gets the same letter again.
| Line | Last word | Letter |
|---|---|---|
| At midnight, when the house is dark and still, | still | A |
| and Amma’s door is shut across the hall, | hall | B |
| my phone begins to buzz on the window sill | sill | A |
| and throws a square of blue light on the wall. | wall | B |
“still” and “sill” rhyme, and “hall” and “wall” rhyme, so the pattern is ABAB.