“O, could I loose all father, now.” Here he candidly expresses his feelings by crying out to God. He speaks bluntly about the grief he is experiencing, and tries to reason with it as well by using Christianity concepts, “For why / Will man lament the state he should envie?”. He curses himself for putting too much love and faith into the boy, almost believing in him too much (“my sinne was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy”).
I think that On my first Sonne is a poem towards God and the deceased, but it is written for the comfort of Ben Jonson himself, to reassure him about his son’s death. The poem is very emotional, and very involved.
On my first Sonne uses a regular rhythm, with occasionally rhymes. This creates a profound effect, and this in emphasised in certain places, for example “and I thee pay / Exacted by fate, on the just day.” The regularity of the rhythm helps to express the despair he is feeling, by making bold interjections stand out (“O, could I loose all father, now”).
Mid term break is overall more subtle in its approaches to express grief. It describes the events surrounding the death, not the emotions the poet went through. Grief is also brought out through the choice of words; for example “knelling”. “Knell” is a word used to describe the ringing of death bells, but not school bells.
The narrative in the first stanza takes a detached and spaced-out rhythm. This shows the shock that has hit the poet, and how he has distanced himself from the tragic event. Through the whole poem, the rhythm remains slow, revealing how the poet feels unsure and isolated.
“as my mother held my hand / in hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs” These lines show the grief, that Seams Heaney cannot express alone, being expressed by his mother for him.
He mentions his father crying in the fourth line because it is so out of the ordinary that he has to mention it. This in itself shows some of the shock of the event, and how he is frightened by the change. “It was a hard blow” has overtones of a heavy impact, as in the accident and as the emotions that follow.
“The corpse” is such in line 15 that it is unrecognisable; it is no longer his brother, but a corpse. So great is the disorientation surrounding being plucked suddenly from school into a surreal environment, he does not have time to contemplate his brother, and so the corpse remains as an unnamed, “staunched” body.
In this poem, the expression of grief is contextualised, i.e. the grief is voiced through the context of the event, and not through statements about the emotions. There is a strong feeling of being oblivious to the true nature of bereavement in this poem, from the baby laughing in its pram to the poet feeling embarrassed (he cannot feel his own grief).
The poem changes tone from line 16 onwards. The poet has had time to think about his brother’s death, and then approaches his brother alone. The phrase “wearing a poppy bruise” has overtones of death (poppies are associated with Remembrance day), but also the fact that he is “wearing” a bruise rather than having a bruise indicates that he is not normally in that state, and the poet does not see him as such.
The rhythm works best in this poem in the final line, “a four foot box, a foot for every year”. The slow pace stresses the tragedy of the event, and gives an insight into the mind of the poet, after he has had a chance to think about it.
In conclusion, I believe that the poem Mid-Term Break the experience of grief better than On my first Sonne, because I prefer an indirect approach to the emotions surrounding bereavement. The style of writing and context make it more modern, and makes it seem more relevant.
