Carrying on from “we remember your childhood well” the poem has a clear formal structure, the three-line stanzas have a loose rhyme scheme. The irregular metre is interrupted by many pauses, creating a slow and rather jerky rhythm as if they are disconnected statements. The most obvious unifying feature is the way each stanza opens with a declarative in a complete short sentence or main clause: “Nobody hurt you”, “Your questions were answered”, “Nobody forced you”, “What you recall are impressions” and “Nobody sent you away”. The last stanza also opens with a short sentence - but this time it is a question: “What does it matter now?”
“On my first sonne” the following line continues the religious theme, as Johnson considers that his son was actually lent to him by God: 'Seven yeeres tho'wert lent to me,' and we now know that the child died at the age of seven. Johnson believes that all life is a gift from God, and that he had to give his child back to God at such a young age. In line 5 Johnson pours out his grief in the phrase 'O, could I loose all father', he wishes that he did not have to take on the role of a father who loved his son so dearly, because it is painful to mourn for a child. However, the poet then goes on to say 'For why / Will man lament the state he should envie?' meaning that it is strange to grieve over death, as death is something that should be welcomed, something to look forward to. He explains this feeling in line 7 when he says that death is an escape from 'worlds, and fleshes rage', an escape from the turmoil and anger that we encounter throughout our lives. Then in line 8 Johnson says that even if there are no problems in life, death is at least an escape from aging, in other words old age.
This is a concise twelve-line poem with six pairs of rhyming couplets. The middle section, from line 5, is the most emotional one, but Johnson tries to be philosophical about his grief, seeing death as an escape from a troubled world. A calmer atmosphere pervades in the last four lines, where the poet is in positive mood, seeing his son as his finest creation. We know from the final line that he never wishes to feel such intense pain again if another family member was to die.
In “we remember your childhood well” the poem explores the gap between appearance and reality. In almost every case the father does not dispute that something happened that the daughter thought was bad. But the father claims that the daughter has misunderstood things or remembered them not quite as they were. Partly the explanation for this is that the daughter's recollections are subjective “impressions” which are mistaken or false memories.
The father's reassurance is unconvincing, for different reasons - such as the way he or she shifts ground: “That didn't occur. You couldn't sing anyway, cared less” or the way the father claims to know the daughter's own feelings better than he ever did - “you wanted to go that day. Begged” and “people/You seemed to like”.
The ending of the poem is very upsetting, it appears that the child blames the parents for ruining her life, while they deny this: “nobody...laid you wide open for Hell.”
In comparison both of the following poems, “we remember your childhood well” and “On my first sonne” both represent father and children situations and how they handle the way the father’s feel about how their children act. The fathers both act the same way even though they have different situations. What I mean by that is that they both love their sons or daughters even if they did something they wish their children did not do or if they have lost them.
