Prayer before Birth By Louis MacNeice

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me. 

Prayer before birth is a poem written in the form of dramatic monologue exposing the cruelty and ruthless manner of the world. It is written by Louis Mc. Niece who belong to the auden group. Although he was not whole heartedly. In his opinion, communism might give set to the picture of perfection and a perfect society but this perfection would last "For one day only". Mc.Niece was completely dissatisfied and frustrated with the present day life and he peeved  into the old classical world. He presents his poem in the humorous tone and with the help of contemporary ideas and images.He is highly gifted with wit and high spirits and exposes the  horrors of the war. He has written fine lyrics and the poem of didacticism but there is a lack of a driving force. His approach is casual and he often conceal the underline emotion. He is famous for his works like "The dark tower", the poetry of W.B yeats "The Earth compels", 'Autumn Journal', Holes in the sky' and collected poems. Prayer before birth reflects the frustration of the poet due to the force of materialism and rampant  evil practices in the society. He wants to get rid of the world of machinery and factory towns and take shelter in the lap of nature and country life. He expresses his strong disgust towards the corrupted and evil world through his poems 'Prayer  before birth'. He takes the persona of an unborn child who delivers his prayer to God. The poet imagines himself to be in the womb of his mother and he feels that his birth in the human society might take away his innocence. He wants to remain as an innocent child even after his birth. Therefore he prays to the Almighty that a proper atmosphere should be provided so that he can lead a proper life. The atmosphere should be free of sins and corrupt practices.

The poem 'Prayer before birth' opens with the plea of the unborn child who prays to God to keep away the nocturnal creatures both real and imaginary away from him so that no harm is done to him.
The poet says- "I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat
or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me".

The poet points out that he does not want to be confronted by the people who with the help of deadly drug might try to control him and dictate his actions. The Unborn child wishes to be surrounded by nature which man has not still been able to corrupt. The child says that he is going to commit a number of evils in this world under the influence of man.Therefore he asks God's forgiveness before hand. He asks for repentance. He prepare himself for the role that he is going to play after his birth. The poet says-  
"old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me",

The Unborn child makes a prayer to go to keep away the people who were either as savage as animals or who act in a cruel and brutal manner thinking themselves as Supreme as God himself. They have become theomaniacs. The poet says-
"I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
Come near me".

The Unborn child asks to deliver the will power and the strength so that he can stand against those who would try to destroy all that is unique within him and transform him into an insignificant part of a large machine. He does not want to be under their control. They would control him as if he were a small stone or a grain of sand which the wind can blow here and there  or as if he were water which a person would try to hold in his hands and at the end spill everywhere. The poem ends ultimatum. The unborn child please to be protected against the evil forces of man. If this cannot be done then he wishes to be killed before being born in this world. The poet says-
"Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me".

The poem is full of repetition especially the line -"I am not yet born" is repeated at the start of every stanza which makes  it crystal  clear that the child has not taken birth in the world but he is aware of the dark and evil forces which surrounded this world. The poet also uses assonance juxtaposed with alliteration. For ex: 'bat' and 'rat' and blood sucking etc. The poet personifies nature in several examples. for example "Trees  to talk to me" and "Skies to sing to me".

In the Last stanza is flowing with metaphors in which the poet describes how man tries to control and manipulate the action and emotion of a child. The unborn child fears that he will become 'a cog n a machine' or he may  be blown  neither and thither or he may be wasted like water held in hands. The metaphors reflect that the unborn child after birth may lose his control over himself. Therefore we find the use of literary terms like internal rhymes repetition, assonance  and alliteration. The poem 'Prayer before birth exposes the evil of the society and the corruption of mankind spread throughout the world. The poem is quite depressing and sad. The present world has been painted with dark colors. If the child takes birth he is going to be affected by the evil men present in the world. He expresses is desired that he has nothing to do with man and he desires the company of nature. There is dramatic intensity found in the poem. It also reminds us of T. S Eliot poem 'The wasteland' and 'The Hollow Men' and Ted huges poem 'The Hawk' which give the panoramic view of the 20th century society. 

Insensibility by Wilfred Owen

  

                                      I 

Happy are men who yet before they are killed 

Can let their veins run cold. 

Whom no compassion fleers 

Or makes their feet 

Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers. 

The front line withers. 

But they are troops who fade, not flowers, 

For poets’ tearful fooling: 

Men, gaps for filling: 

Losses, who might have fought 

Longer; but no one bothers. 

                                     II 

And some cease feeling 

Even themselves or for themselves. 

Dullness best solves 

The tease and doubt of shelling, 

And Chance’s strange arithmetic 

Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling. 

They keep no check on armies’ decimation. 

                                     III 

Happy are these who lose imagination: 

They have enough to carry with ammunition. 

Their spirit drags no pack. 

Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache. 

Having seen all things red, 

Their eyes are rid 

Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever. 

And terror’s first constriction over, 

Their hearts remain small-drawn. 

Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle 

Now long since ironed, 

Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned. 

                                     IV 

Happy the soldier home, with not a notion 

How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack, 

And many sighs are drained. 

Happy the lad whose mind was never trained: 

His days are worth forgetting more than not. 

He sings along the march 

Which we march taciturn, because of dusk, 

The long, forlorn, relentless trend 

From larger day to huger night. 

                                     V 

We wise, who with a thought besmirch 

Blood over all our soul, 

How should we see our task 

But through his blunt and lashless eyes? 

Alive, he is not vital overmuch; 

Dying, not mortal overmuch; 

Nor sad, nor proud, 

Nor curious at all. 

He cannot tell 

Old men’s placidity from his. 

                                     VI 

But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns, 

That they should be as stones. 

Wretched are they, and mean 

With paucity that never was simplicity. 

By choice they made themselves immune 

To pity and whatever moans in man 

Before the last sea and the hapless stars; 

Whatever mourns when many leave these shores; 

Whatever shares 

The eternal reciprocity of tears.

Insensibility is based on the theme of War. It is written by the Wilfred Owen, one of the most important war poets of 20th century who influenced the poet of Georgian period. In his poems we are shocked by a mode of cynicism, satire and realism. He had been to war field and he has also witnessed the terror and horrors of warfare. He belongs to the group of poets namely-Kipling, Freeman, Kardy and others. Wilfred Owen enjoys an important position among the war poets because he conveys the sense that the act of war is futile. He also arouses or pity created by the devastation of war on a large scale. Unfortunately the poet himself was killed in action. He was highly influenced by Sasson. According to Wilfred Owen  in the preface to his collection he writes- “I am not concerned with poetry. My subject is war and the pity of war.The poetry is in the pity.”

Thus we find Wilfred Owen has witnessed the panoramic view of war from a very close angle and it has rightly affected his mind and has aroused a sense of pity in his mind. Therefore his poetry is a Gospel against war. According to Edward Albert- “Never has the pity of war more deeply left or more powerfully shown”

The poem Insensibility begins with a note of  bitter realisation of  war. The poet feels that those men are happy and lucky who can cool down there warm blood before their death. The poet says-

“ Happy are men yet before they are killed

Can let their veins run cold”

 The poet wants to convey the situation before the death of the soldiers. The soldiers face the grin battle of life and death. They are completely devoid of passion. The poet is reminded of  the actions going on the battle field. Some of the soldiers fall down to the bullets of the enemy camp. Those who are rough and tough they fight bravely.  The  soldiers were not delicate things like the petals of flowers. The poet puts a question, if the soldier can live longer and fight longer and finally he also gives the answer who cares for such brave soldiers or martyrs. The poet says- “ They keep no check on army is decimation” In the third stanza of the poem, the poet admires those who loose their imagination in the passage of time because person without imagination can fight in the war with courage.

The poet says that there is a lack of sensitivity and imaginative  power to assess and visualise the demerits of  war but those who are without imagination, there spirits do not pull them back. Therefore they flight bravely and courageously. The pinches of war are hardly perceived by them not only the eyes of such insensitive and unimaginative fighters are hurt by the site of blood shedding from the wounded soldiers. They come across a number of dying soldiers and still they have the stamina to laugh because they remain least concerned. According to the poet such soldier as - “Can laugh among the dying unconcerned”

The people who are termed insensible are actually worldly unimaginative and insensitive. They are also unresponsive towards the miseries and sufferings of the war. When the soldier is unaware of the attacking, when he is at home he remains more happy at home than in the battlefield. Those kinds also remains happy whose minds are not trained along the military lines. While marching on the roads the young kids sing song but while marching towards the battlefield the soldiers become a lot and conscious.

The poet also justifies the job of a soldier, his nature of work can not be viewed word from the eyes of an innocent and carefree young boy. A soldier is like any other mortal but still he is completely different because he dies earlier than his death. He does not die for himself, he dies for his country and the people of the country. That is why dignity and honor is attached even with his death.

The concluding stanza expresses the poet’s anguish that there are person with lusty and insensitive soul who want to gain more and more power and more and more position. These persons are really insensible in their understanding. They are selfish by nature, they do not like to cooperate with others. They become pitiless. The poet further says that none should moan over their death because of their insensibility. They are doomed to be lost in obscurity.

 The poet in his poem Insensibility not only describes about war and the faith of  soldier but also about the people who are insensitive and least concerned with the war. This poem is a great satire on insensible people who do not love their country and their countrymen. The poet shows a good command of rhythm and thus his poem becomes highly musical. 

The Second Coming by W.B Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity. 

Surely some revelation is at hand; 

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep 

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

    The second coming is a symbolical poem which represent the prophetic vision of W.B Yeats who began to write his poetry in tradition of self-conscious,romanticism which he learned from the poet of 1890’s. He was highly influenced by Spenser, P.B Shelley and William Blake. The poem represents the deplorable position of the world especially after the first world war.

    W.B Yeats is a symbolist. His poetry represents the world in a symbolical manner.His important poems include ‘The Tower’, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ & ‘The wild swans’etc. The poem opens with the spiral movement turning and turning. The poet says that we have move into gyre and historical movement which probably started with the birth of the Jesus Christ. But now the human civilisation has gone so far from its initial point that we have almost forgotten our base or the ground from where we started.

   “The poet says-

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

    The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”

   The poet describe the pathetic situation that exist in the society. There is anarchy in the world. The world dominated by blood thirsty game and the ceremony of innocence has been completely drowned. Man has become passionate to express his views only. He doesn’t want to live together. He expresses his feelings with intensity and violence. He has progressed due to scientific & technological knowledge. But at present he has lost control over it. The poet fears that science may create harm and havoc to human civilisation. The rulers of the world are involved in imperialism and expending circles of power to such an extent that they can fulfil whatever they wish.

   The second stanza of the poem begins with the prophetic vision of second coming. The second coming is a  biblical reference. The world Spiritus  Mundi stands for a kind of storehouse of image in W.B Yeats philosophy. There is a kind of revelation. The poet feels that a new civilisation is going to take birth. The poet has the vision of sphinx-“ A shape with lion body and the head of a man”

    The poet has the vision of sphinx rising at the end of the world & moving slowly towards the world from a distant desert to Bethlehem, the birth place of Jesus Christ. The monster is so ferocious and nightmarish that bird are scared due to horror and terror. The coming of the sphinx symbolises that the rocking cradle of 20^th century is going to come to an end. It is going to bring death to the present civilisation. It symbolises merciless violence.

   The second coming describe the 20 centuries of stony sleep. The idea has been taken from Chinua Achebe’s famous novel ‘Thing fall apart’. The symbols used by W.B Yeats conveys a number of meanings which are linked with the personal thought & inspiration. According to him life is a journey up a spiral staircase. As we grows older we cover the ground we have covered before     

Wants by Philip Larkin

                 

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flag-staff -
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes away from death -
Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs.


The poem ‘Wants’ is based on the theme of melancholy of the modern world. Philip Larkin took anti-romantic stand in his poems. Larkin in his poetry portrays even childhood as dull and interesting which is earlier romantic poems were celebrated as golden and ideal period. He reacted against the poetry of T.S Eliot and W.H Auden only because he thought that their poetry was highly intellectual and not written for common people. Philip Larkin is an English poet, novelist and critic.

Wants is a modern poem based on the theme of the strong desire of the poet’s  “Wish to be alone” amidst the mechanical life of men in the 20^th century. Philip Larkin belongs to the group of Movement Poets of 1950.The important poems of Philip Larkin include ‘The Less Deceived’(1955), 'The Whitsun Wedding’(1964) and ‘ High Windows’(1974).The Whitsun Wedding is considered to be one of the best poems written so far in this century.

The poem Wants has been extracted from the collection of the less deceived. The poet expresses his deep desire for loneliness and death. Larkin is a keen observer of society. He treats the theme of growing old and death in ‘Wants’. The poems opens with the glimmering sky becoming dark and people are invited to the party with invitation cards and members of the society are photograph together. There is a kind of meeting of the individuals and togetherness involving collective activity. Inspite of all this there is an active and nagging desire to be left alone, “The wish to be alone”. According to Larkin the social activities of the modern world cannot obliterate our deep desire to be alone. People are aware of the shallowness of the hearts of the modern people like Alfred Prufrock and Mistah Kurtz.

Philip Larkin say-

"Beyond all this,the wish to be alone

However the sky grows dark with invitation card 

However we follow the printed direction of sex

However the family is photographed under the flagstaff

Beyond all this,the wish to be alone"

According to Michael H. Short- “The phrase printed direction of sex” could refer to book on sexual positions and instructions, on contraceptive packets or how to calculate female ovulation periods in order to avoid or ensure conception. The poet presents the love making as a matter of mechanics.

There is a plethora of invitation cards like heavy clouds darkening the sky. Their appears to be some pleasure in attending the social functions watching the women passing by and the meeting of the eyes. There is printed information available to beget small families to reduce expenditure and responsibilities and to increase happiness. Artificiality had invited the spontaneous and emotional social life, This reminds us of what T.S Eliot says about the mechanical nature of sexual relationships in the Wasteland. There is even relationship between the carbuncular young men and the lady typist. The family photographs appear to be symbol of modern, happy ideal, social life. But the poet emphasize that all our social, sexual and domestic activities cannot eradicate our desire to be alone.

Notes on Lay Your Sleeping Head My Love by W.H Auden

Lay Your Sleeping Head My Love

                                                          

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit’s carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

The poem Lay Your Sleeping Head My Love is a 20th century poem written by W.H Auden. It is based on modern frustration,depression,infidelity.The poet expresses anxiety of the lover but still he has liking for his beloved. The look at the head of the beloved arouses a sense of temporary love towards the beloved. Man is usually busy with the fever and fret of the busy life of the modern world. There is a sudden offer made to his to his sleeping beloved that she may take rest on his arms for some time till the morning but she cannot rely on this arm.


The poem opens with an extended metaphor for peace. Auden suggests that sensual and carnal love is an irrational torment but when it takes places the two lover become one immediately after the the trials and tribulation of the day. The lovers find the peaceful evening which is further followed by their sensual serenity. The lovers become mature. The human life on this world is transient and ephemeral but till the lover offers his arms till break of day so that the beloved may take rest. Being a human being a lover has the sense of mortality and guilt.                                                                                             

The poet says that as the two lovers become one, their soul and body are not bound by any limitation or restriction. They are in kind of swoon. They have the vision of grave. This the time when the lovers has the vision of Venus. There is no longer the personification of vanity. Even the lust is released. There is certain awakening within the lovers expressed in the form of hermit, ecstasy and happiness. Thus the goddess of Venus provides a vision of grave which reflect the vision of ‘Super Natural Sympathy' and 'Universal Love'.             
In the following stanza, the poet strike at clock at 12 o'clock at midnight. There is a sense of certainty and fidelity as the bell rings the feelings fade away into the night as a illusion to the death knoll. The poet further says that after the bell rings there shall not be a whisper and not a thought that can be lost.

The poet expresses his anxiety that the arrival of the midnight the vision vanishes. The lovers move towards dawn. They find the mortal world. Once again, the dryness of the noon’s and the insulation in the life of human being the poet is unable to understand how lovers arm became faithless. The lover does not refer to an act of betrayal against his beloved.Venus,the goddess of love also talks about considers hermits,carnal,ecstasy.The life continues like the card game, moving towards the graveyard and everything is going to pass away.

W.H Auden’s poem Lay Your Sleeping Head My Love is a sensational love poem in an age of anxiety where the lover’s unite and heavenly pleasure by the grace of Venus but she provides the vision of grave which arouses the glaciers and the rocks within that makes the hermit extremely happy. The poet further describe the different stages of day, noon and night etc.The poem is divided into four stanzas. The poem is highly passionate and intellectual.