With close reference to 'Before you were mine' 'Mother..any distance' and 'On my first Sonne' explain how imagery, structure and language are used to convey these relationships.

The poem Mother..any distance uses imagery metaphorically. The ways a mother helps her child is described, explaining how she helped her child when growing up, with small distances first; 'Windows, pelmets, doors,' -This symbolizes how she helped her child when they were young, with small problems. As the child grows, so do the distances. He is further away, the emotional gap has grown, and he only occasionally reports back to her, '...reporting meters, centimeters back to base.' The mother is 'base'  where he starts off. 'You at the zero end, me with the spool of tape,' The tape represents the emotional distance between them, as he grows.

Mother ..any distance has quite a simple structure. It begins by telling how a mother helps with small things; as the poem progresses, the child goes onto greater distances, and heights, until finally they are reaching out, needing  to leave. To be a success, or to fail. The author shows how the child has grown up, and grown away from his mother. Starting small, and ending up at the very top peak of the house, and the end of his childhood. The increasing size of measurements is used to represent the growing distance between mother and son. Without this structure the poem lacks meaning, and the reader would struggle to understand its message

On my first Sonne does not follow any particular structure. It is not repetetive, as the  other two are. It is a short, precise and effective poem, although words are few, those used are very powerful, as well as the phrases. Half way through the poem, the author uses a paradox,

   'O, could I loose all father now, for why

  Will man lament the state he should envy?'

-This draws the reader further into the poem as well as making them think.

The author uses some words which are no longer commonly used - such as 'tho' for 'you'. The author uses iambic pentameters.

A complex idea is packed neatly into the last two rhyming lines of the poem, an epigram.

The poet sees his sons death as the result oh his sin - loving the child too much, this idea returns at the end of the poem. Johnson also sees his sons life as a loan, which he has had to repay after seven years. The use of this extended metaphor expresses the idea that people all really belong to God and are only permitted to spend time in this world.

Ben Jonson, in some places writes as if he was talking to him son, it seems as though he assumes that the boy can read his words. He calls his son the child of his 'right hand' these ideas suggest the boy is of great worth and also that he would have been as his father, the writer's heir. An image which comes from the Bible. It reflects ancient cultures, how Jesus is shown as sitting at God's right hand.

 Before you were mine  describes, in each stanza a little more of the image of the mother, each stanza is different, and this is effective, as each has it's own little story, and image. The author also reminds you in each paragraph, that the mothers child is not yet born, and it is only their imagination. The poem flows well, and she uses the title as the last phrase of the poem, 'Where you sparlkle and waltz and laugh  before you were mine' - this is a very effective ending, and completes the poem well.