The Kite Summary

The Kite is a beautiful lyrical poem written by Harry Behn. In this poem, the poet illustrates the flying of a new kite in the sky. The new kite gets compared to many beautiful things which justifies the kite’s own beauty and motion. He says via the poem that the kite’s flight in the sky depends on the wind that blows, but when it gets stuck and tangles on the branches of a tree, it will lose its shine and beauty.

Poem – The Kite

A kite

How bright on the blue

Is a kite when it’s new!

With a dive and a dip

It snaps its tail

Then soars like a ship

With only a sail

As over tides

Of wind, it rides,

Climbs to the crest

Of a gust and pulls,

Then seems to rest

As windfalls.

When string goes slack

You wind it back

And run until

A new breeze blows

And its wings fill

And up it goes!

A kite getting stuck on the branches of the trees

How bright on the blue

Is a kite when it’s new!

But a raggeder thing

You never will see

When it flaps on a string

In the top of a tree.

The Kite — Summary

Part 1

How bright on the blue

Is a kite when it’s new!

With a dive and a dip

It snaps its tail

Then soars like a ship

With only a sail

In the first stanza, we see that the poet justifies his happiness by giving an exclamation that a kite looks very bright and beautiful in the blue sky when it is new. The kite ‘snaps’ which means waves itself in amusement. The kite thus waves its tail with a dive and a dip. In other words, this can be represented as the kite flying in the air as waves sway in the sea while its tail moves rapidly along with its body.

So, according to the poet, the new kite sways in the sky just like the waves swaying at the sea.

Part 2

As over tides

Of wind, it rides,

Climbs to the crest

Of a gust and pulls,

Then seems to rest

As windfalls.

In this stanza, the poet illustrates via his words how the kite rides over the tides of wind. The kite rides upwards when there is a strong gust of wind and the kite runner pulls the thread. And when the blowing of the wind is slow, the kite seems to take a rest hanging in the air.

Part 3

When string goes slack

You wind it back

And run until

A new breeze blows

And its wings fill

And up it goes!

In this stanza, the poet explains how a kite is flown. The kite runner loses the string which is attached to the kite, then he winds or pulls back the string and runs in the direction where a new breeze of wind blows.

Part 4

How bright on the blue

Is a kite when it’s new!

But a raggeder thing

You never will see

When it flaps on a string

In the top of a tree.

Here, the poet talks about the condition of the kite when it gets stuck over the tree’s branches. The kite appears here bright and beautiful in the blue sky when this is totally new. However, when the string, unfortunately, tangles in the top branch of the tree, it will never appear as bright and beautiful as it was before. Rather the kite looked like some torn clothes losing its beauty and charm.

Conclusion

The Kite written by Harry Behn displays the charm of a flying new kite, he correctly illustrates the contrast between how beautiful it looks when it sways in the air, and how ragged it looks when it gets tangled on the branches of the trees. This is an exact portrait of our life as well. It is wild and fresh when new, and when it ages and gets tangled in earthy problems, life loses its charm and beauty.

The Kite summary and the poem are discussed in this content to make the students understand ‘The Kite’ Poem by Harry Behn.