This is one of my favorite poems ever!The poet uses the image of a child(a representation of the future generation)expressing his fear about being born into a world
where the human race is so savage as is portrayed in the poem.It shows how humans are born innocent and are corrupted
in their lives here.Birth is used as a metaphor for the awakening into the ways of the world.
It can be viewed as a prayer to God or humanity-an appeal for a worthwhile and natural life free from the threats of terror,
pretentiousness,conformity,barriers,loss of individuality,a world scourged by pollution,manipulation,etc...
I hope you like it..
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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.
May 10, 2009
Prayer Before Birth-Louis MacNeice
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4 comments:
i love this poem! its so bold. and the whole poem sounds like one tantalizing drum beat. and its littered with truth. i cant believe you like it too!!! yayy!
its amazing isn't it??its so full of truth!!i love louis macneiece
ya! i wanted to do it with the 11thies if i had stayed on. its in the ISC poetry book isnt it? its fabby!
yes it is..i loved how sid m taught us..
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