Prayer Before Childhood Poem Analysis

Childhood is something we all experience as well as, it is the most essential part in our lives. We can see this in the poems: “Half-past Two” by U.A. Fanthorpe, “Hide and Seek” by Vernon Scannell, and “Prayer Before Birth” by Louis MacNeice. Each one of these poems present childhood from a different perspective; the first two poems portray childhood as an exciting experience, taking it stereotypically. However, “Prayer Before Birth” conveys childhood as an imagination of the unborn child and the problems he will face. Similarly, the other poems: “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence, “Mother in a refugee camp” by Chinua Achebe and “If” by Rudyard Kipling, view childhood as a time, where we first experience the faults we make and the difficult obstacles that we will come across in …show more content…
Therefore, Fanthorpe is suggesting the theme of childhood as being the only time without obstacles or worries, whereas only being the time where a person can relax and enjoy the innocent, untroubled childhood. This nostalgic quality at the end ‘he never forgot’ shows a refreshing feeling of freedom and the childhood world of lacking time restrictions, with the lovely fantasy images of the ‘clockless land’ and in the phrase ‘Where time hides tick-less waiting to be born’. The readers living in a modern world of daily schedules and appointments too can empathise with the little child who had to grow up away from his care-free childhood.

‘Hide and Seek’ by Vernon Scannell also explores the theme of childhood. Here the child is playing hide and seek with his friends and thinks he has won, however, he realizes at the end that he has been abandoned by his friends. The poet also portrays childhood using various literary devices, such as metaphors, similes and personification and writes the poem as if it is an extended metaphor of the persona’s