come
WHEN Death to either shall
come,—
I pray it be first to
me,—
Be happy as ever at
home,
If so, as I wish, it
be.
Possess thy heart, my
own;
5
And sing
to the child on thy knee,
Or read to thyself
alone
The songs that I made for
thee.
The poem
by Robert Bridges is a very sensitive poem. Its main theme us death and it is emphasised
not only in the title but also in the first line of the poem. The poet is willing to die
and he is referring to someone.. He wishes that if someone from either one of them does
die, he should be the first one for he belives it wil bring him peace. "Be happy as ever
at home" means that the poet perhaps is not at home or where he is he does not seem to
be feeling the warmth and the love that one feels when at home. Hence, he wants to
embrace death with open arms and get closer to the warmth and peace that he may receive
when he dies. The first stanza consists of hyphens, whcih causes a break to occur. It
shows that this thought may be sudden. Moreover, the ryhme scheme is a-b-a-b, which
makes the poem more lyrical.
The second stanza talks about
what the person he is talking to should do when he will die. The first two lines of the
second stanza indicate the presence of a child and this brings the theme of innocence
and how the poet wants to keep that alive and wants the peron he is talking to keep good
care of the child. Moreover, he talks about the fact that the person should read his
songs. That is, the songs that the poet wrote for his wife, or child or whoever he is
talking to, can read them when he dies, for those songs will be a memory of the
poet.
The poet may be thinking of death as an escape but he
wants the people who are alive and who knew him to remember him even after his death.
There is an element of sadness and the theme of death emphasises this element of sadness
even more.
Im sorry, i dont know which grade you
are in, but i hope this somewhat brief analysis has helped yuo. Do let me
know.
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