The reader of ‘On my first Sonne’ is aware of Jonson's Christian faith .He is certain that his son is in a “state" we should envy, in God's keeping. Heaney’s poem does not discuss religion so prominently; however there are discripions which indicate a Catholic funeral. Both Jonson and Heaney write in the first person and therefore we can be sure that they are speaking for and as themselves.
Throughout ‘Mid-term break’ there are references to the different the types of mourning which people went through after the death of a child. The father, apparently always strong at other funerals, is distraught by his child's death, while the mother is too angry to cry and instead she “coughed out angry tearless sighs”. This role reversal emphasises the turmoil cause by the death of the child. “Big Jim”, apparently a family friend, makes a regrettable pun in which he refers to a metaphorical “blow” as apposed to the “blow” which killed the boy. The young Seamus is made uneasy by the baby's happiness on seeing him, by the “old men” shaking his hand and their euphemisms, like “Sorry for my trouble”, and by whispers about him. When late at night the child's body is returned Heaney refers to this as “the corpse”. He no longer sees this as a person. However the final two stanzas in which Heaney is alone with his brother where he can be natural. This contrasts greatly with the embarrassing scenes earlier in the poem. In this stanza he uses personal pronouns such as “him”, “his” and “he”, as opposed to the insensitive term, “the corpse”. In the last two stanzas Heaney portrays a calm mood, “Snowdrops/And candles soothed the bedside”, literally they soothed Heaney.
In ‘On my first Sonne’ is more about Jonson tying to find a meaning for his loss than mourning his son’s death. The poet sees the boy's death as caused by his, not his son’s sin, in loving the child too much, an idea that returns at the end of the poem. He sees the boy's life also in terms of a loan from God, which he has had to repay, after seven years, on “the just day". This metaphor expresses the idea that all people really belong to God and are permitted to spend time in this world. At this point the reader becomes very aware of the poet’s religion and faith in God and also his ideas of an after life. Jonson tries to argue that it is only fair that his son is returned at God’s bidding and that his arrogant plans for the boy's future were the cause of his present sense of loss. He then questions his own grief: why lament the enviable state of death when the child has escaped suffering and the misery of aging? He can not answer this question and therefore simply says "Rest in soft peace" and suggests that "his best piece of poetry" is his son, the creation of which he was most proud. Jonson looks at the contradiction that we "lament" something we should really envy. Remembering his sin of loving too much he now expresses the hope or wish that from now on, whatever he loves he will not love it "too much". He concludes by vowing that from now on he will be more careful with those he loves; he will be wary of liking and so needing them too much. Jonson writes as if talking or writing to his son. He calls him the child of his "right hand" both to suggest the boy's great worth and also the fact that he would have been the writer's heir. This is another religious image in the poem. It comes from the Bible it reflecting ancient cultures and the way Jesus is shown as sitting at God's right hand. The poem contains several old English words such as “thou” and “Sonne”.
In conclusion the ‘On my first Sonne’ and ‘Mid-term break’ explore different aspects of childhood death. In ‘Mid-term Break’ Heaney uses the many ways of morning to portray the effects and pandemonium caused by the death of a child. Whereas, ‘On my first Sonne’ is more focused on justifying the death and the consequent pain caused by the death of a child. Both of these methods are very effective in helping the reader feel the trauma that the loss of a child can cause.
