1.“His smile/Is like an infant’s…” Whose ‘smile’ is being referred to here? Why is his smile compared to the smile of an infant? How does nature take care of him? [1 + 3 + 2 = 6]
Ans. The smile of the soldier who is lying asleep in the small valley is being referred to here.

              The smile of the soldier is compared with that of an infant as it is innocent and without any guile. The poet wants to suggest that though he is a soldier, whose occupation is to kill, he is as innocent as an infant when he is asleep.

             Nature has provided him everything he needs for his sleep. His grassy bed is warm and sun-soaked. Fern leaves act as a pillow under his head. The filtered sunlight from the hilltop keeps him warm.

2.How does the poet express the futility of war through his poem ‘Asleep in the valley’? What message does he want to convey?[4+2=6]
Ans. The poem ‘Asleep in the valley’ begins with the description of a beautiful valley in spring. The warm, sunlit hollow is in the heart of a mountain and a slow stream moves through it. After this the poet gives us a description of a young soldier lying asleep in the open quite peacefully in this beautiful valley. The smiling face of the soldier reminds one that an infant with its gentleness and innocence. But in the very last line of the poem the poet tells about the two red holes in his flank and brings home to his readers the shocking revelation that the apparently sleeping soldier is actually a dead soldier, a sacrificial victim of the futile war.
             Through this poem the poet wants to convey message that though nature is bountiful and kind the human concoction of war only brings death and destruction and meaningless waste of life.

3.“In his side there are two red holes”-Who is the person referred to here? What do the ‘two red holes’ signify? What attitude of the poet to war is reflected here?[1+2+3=6]
Ans. The person referred to here is the dead soldier who apparently seems to be sleeping peacefully in a beautiful valley.
         The ‘two red holes’ signifies that they are the bullet holes and the soldier is not sleeping in the valley but a casualty of war and has been brutally killed.
             The poet Arthur Rimbaud conveys a strong message in this poem against the brutality of war. He suggests that war takes away innocent and young lives and everyone seems to be unheedful about it. Everything looks placid and beautiful like the small green valley of spring but beneath this apparent beauty and peace, the shocking fact of two red wounds remains underneath telling about the horrible brutality of war.