Prayer Before Birth
By Louis MacNeice
I am not yet born; O hear me. *
refrain
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me. *
macabre/grotesque
I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, *oxymoron
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.
I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light *personification
in the back of my mind to guide me.
I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words *Biblical
when they speak to me, my thoughts when they think me, allusion
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.
I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.
I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God *Satan: Biblical
, allusion
come near me.
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, *to force
into
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
submission
one face, a thing, and against all those by
violence
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and *
simile
thither or hither and thither
fragility
like water held in the
hands would spill me.
*loss of
identity
Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.
Prayer Before Birth was written during the throws of the Second
World War.
VOICE
The title leads us to believe that we will hear the prayer of a mother before
she gives birth. Leading us to infer that this is the prayer of a mother allows
By Louis MacNeice
I am not yet born; O hear me. *
refrain
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me. *
macabre/grotesque
I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, *oxymoron
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.
I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light *personification
in the back of my mind to guide me.
I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words *Biblical
when they speak to me, my thoughts when they think me, allusion
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.
I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.
I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God *Satan: Biblical
, allusion
come near me.
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, *to force
into
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
submission
one face, a thing, and against all those by
violence
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and *
simile
thither or hither and thither
fragility
like water held in the
hands would spill me.
*loss of
identity
Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.
Prayer Before Birth was written during the throws of the Second
World War.
VOICE
The title leads us to believe that we will hear the prayer of a mother before
she gives birth. Leading us to infer that this is the prayer of a mother allows
