Free «'For My Daughter' by Weldon Kees» Essay Sample

The first lines of the poem familiarize the reader with Weldon Kees’s daughter. The girl is described as a person with some disease and the poet seems to be upset because of this fact. He is looking at the daughter and sees how some illness is very slowly killing the girl. A bit later, the writer describes another situation. He shares the information about her daughter’s possible husband. He may have some disease that can be sexually transmitted to the poet’s daughter or he may be just a dull-witted man. It is necessary to stress that the last lines of the poem contain unexpected information and explain why Weldon Kees wrote such mournful sentences. It turns out that the speaker has no daughter and he even has no desire to have any.

At first sight, it is very complicated to give any explanation of the poem written by Weldon Kees. However, it is possible to do that. Medicine has not been so advanced as today and it is known that doctors, contemporary to the poet, were frequently helpless to cure a disease. There was also no opportunity to have a protected sex. That is why, no wonder that Weldon mentions the possibility to get some illness via sexual relations. I think that when the poet was writing “For My Daughter” he was dreaming about his child, but thought that it was better not to have any than see a daughter’s or son’s death because of bad medicine. The poem is full of sorrow and despair. It may be analyzed in two ways. On the one hand, the poet is a good example of a responsible parent. He refuses to have a daughter because he is not able to guarantee her health. There is no opportunity to do this because of poor medicine. On the other hand, the poet may be viewed as an undecided man. Perhaps, he just cannot decide whether he wants to have a child or not. Perhaps, he is just looking for excuses why he does not want to have a child. Poor medicine is then major excuse in this case. The poem makes the readers think about children and develop their own point of view on the problem discussed by Weldon Kees in his “For My Daughter.”

“A Prayer for My Daughter” by William Butler Yeats

In the beginning of the poem, William Butler Yeats describes the storm that makes him think over the daughter’s future. The poet treats the storm as all the problems, complicated situations, and unfriendly people his infant daughter may face in the future. A bit later the poet imagines the daughter’s future and thinks of the best fate for her. Yeats does not want his child to make other suffer and suffer herself because of unfaithful people. He gives an example of Helen of Troy who became the reason for war. The poet does not want her daughter to be as unfaithful as Helen. He wants her to be beautiful and possess the beauty that makes no harm to other people. The poet wants her daughter to choose a deserving husband with good character instead of marrying to someone who has perfect social position. By the end of the poem, William draws a conclusion that it is better for his daughter to be strongly biased. He hopes that his daughter will become happy, despite all the storms in her life. She will marry a reliable man and have a pure soul.

The poem shows how the father values his daughter and is grateful to God for this gift. However, he is wonder what the future of the infant will be. He prays for his daughter and asks God to give the girl happiness and welfare. In the poem, William Butler Yeats emphasizes the fact that humility and good manners are much more important than being strongly opinionated. The poet is sure that it is better to have a pure soul before God’s face than have everything necessary pleasure. This poem makes me feel respect for the father who tries to foresee the daughter’s future and even prays God for daughter’s happiness. I view the poet as a responsible father who knows how to bring his child up. Yeats is going to teach the daughter how to choose friends and husband and how to live. It is a very complicated task,,that is why he asks God for help. The mood of the poem is optimistic as the storm inspires the father to think over the infant’s future.

“On My First Daughter” by Ben Jonson

This poem describes the father’s passion for his little daughter. “On My First Daughter” begins with showing the parents appearing somewhere near the infant. They are happy because they love their daughter and treat her as the best heaven’s gift. The girl leaves the house at six month in the poem. She is described as an innocent soul and is called Mary. Mother cries because of daughter’s departure, but the first is considered to be a normal thing in the poem.

“On My First Daughter” written by Ben Jonson demonstrates parental love. However, it is not clear why the daughter leaves home so early. I think that there are two possible explanations of this fact. All parents love their children and it is painful for them to see daughters’ and sons’ leaving home. Perhaps, the father started thinking about the daughter’s departure and felt sorrow when the girl was only six months old. He was afraid to lose her too early. The poet may have decided to emphasize the fact that females develop much faster than males. This point of view may be proved by the fact that Jonson describes the son’s departure at the age of seven in the poem “On My First Son”. I think that the poet wanted to emphasize the difference between two genders and show that girls become older much earlier than boys do. In the majority of cases, they even leave home earlier than boys. While reading the poem I felt sympathy to the infant described by the author. She is innocent and pure. She knows nothing about life. She has done nothing wrong yet. The innocence of the girl is emphasized by her name – Mary. It is associated with the Virgin Mary from the Bible. The poem arouses warm feelings towards the infant introduced by Ben Jonson and reminds of careless childhood. The poem gives the feeling of lightness and shares positive mood, although the parents are upset because of the girl’s leaving. I think that here the author wants to emphasize the fact that sooner or later children will leave their parents, no matter how much they are loved and cared of. It is a normal process.

“The Miller’s Daughter” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

This poem is about miller’s daughter. The writer describes her beauty and the reader learns some characteristics of the girl practically from the very beginning of the writing. For example, Alfred states that she has “warm and white” neck. The poet emphasizes the fact that the miller’s daughter becomes older very slowly. The girl’s waist is dainty and the author admires it. He even dreams of becoming the girdle for this beautiful waist. He wants to hear the beating of the girl’s heart to find out if it is beating the right way. Alfred also is dreaming of becoming the girl’s necklace to be with her all the time and feel her breath.

It seems to me that in the poem Alfred demonstrates his passion for the miller’s daughter. I think that only a person who loves is dreaming of being closer to the subject of his/her love. The reader can see that the speaker wants to become either the girdle or the necklace. It seems to be the only way to learn more information about the girl. It is my firm belief that Alfred just fell in love with the miller’s daughter, a girl who was much younger than he was. That is why, he emphasizes the fact that the girl grows too slow. Perhaps, he is eager to see her grown up in order to marry her. Now it is impossible to do that and the poet just watches his beloved and waits. There can be another point of view. The author may be just a viewer admiring the girl’s beauty. He may have no intention to marry her. He just has ever seen such a beautiful girl and that is all. So, there can be several ways to explain Alfred’s poem about the miller’s daughter. The text appeals to the readers’ imagination and gives the floor to their own points of view on the message of the poem. The text itself is gentle and easy to read. Each line of the poem fills the reader with the same admiration of the girl the poet has. The writing lacks the explanation of author’s feelings for the girl. This adds mystery to the whole text and makes it exclusive. Alfred’s “The Miller’s Daughter” makes everyone to admire the beauty of the youth.

“The Youngest Daughter” by Cathy Song

In “The Youngest Daughter”, the story is told by a girl, who is the youngest daughter in the family. There are two characters in the poem – the speaker (the girl) and the mother. The poem starts with the description of the girl’s appearance. She seems to be ill as her skin is aspirin colored and has the signs of migraine. The girl takes care of her mother. She is attentive to her and even helps to have a bath. The speaker describes this process in details. The girl pays much attention to her mother’s fading body. She is described as a person with many signs left by life on her skin and all parts of the body. The woman’s body contains several blue bruises. They appeared because of insulin injection. The daughter soaps her mother and watches the defects of her body. A bit later, the speaker tells about the family’s afternoons. The mother prepares meal and everyone eats in silence. This happens each time, as the silence is called familiar.

The poem “The Youngest Daughter” written by Cathy Song is very sad. The author touches upon the theme of aging. The girl sees how her mother has changed. She was young and now she is much older. The process of aging is inevitable and the girl understands that years will pass and she will follow her mother’s footsteps. There is no way to escape from natural processes. It is normal to be young and die in some time. The poem is rather pessimistic and makes the reader think about aging. It is also very didactic as the author teaches to value youth and to use its advantages because, it will not last forever. The speaker of the poem seems to be very unhappy. The girl compares herself to her mother and understands that in some time she will have the same body and unpleasant appearance. In fact, this poem has a dramatic context and I do not like it very much. To me, aging is not something terrible. It is a normal process and it is not very sadly to feel aging if there are a lot of loving people around. Ages are not felt, when one is respected and loved by children and other relatives.

“To My Daughter in a Red Coat” by Anne Stevenson

In late October, two people are walking in the park. They are a daughter and her mother. The mother is the speaker in the poem. The leaves fell from the trees and some of them are blown by the wind. Those leaves that stay on the trees are looking at the passers-by. The speaker mentions several words about the daughter’s appearance. She has mittens that tug sleeves and the girl, also, has a red coat on. The daughter walks much faster than her mother, and the latter tries to hurry up.

At first sight, there seems to be nothing unusual in this poem. It is just a description of the mother’s and daughter’s walk in the autumn park. Everything seems to be clear and simple here. However, it is possible to find a deep sense in each line of the writing. Autumn is a symbol of fading and new life at the same time. Leaves fell from the trees and die to let new life appear in spring. I think that autumn stands for mother and daughter at the same time. It depicts the mother’s characteristics, her aging and leaving place for a new generation – a daughter. New people are born every day and every day someone dies. I think that the park may stand for the world. The mother is older generation and her daughter is a representative of younger generation. They coexist and older people always try to understand the youth. They hurry up to live with the same tempo as the youth, but, unfortunately, do not manage to do that. It is my firm belief that Anne Stevenson wrote this poem to stress the interdependency of two generations. They cannot exist without each other. Older generation gives birth and brings up and the youth takes care of the first. The both generations live on the same planet but have different purposes in life and cannot go along the same way. The same situation is described and means the mother’s and daughter’s walk. It is necessary to stress that the poem is interesting to read and it gives an opportunity to think over a lot of significant issues.

“A Daughter of Eve” by Christina Rossetti

The speaker describes her sorrow because of doing things in the wrong time. She states that she should not have slept at noon. She wakes at night because of that. The speaker is upset because she plucked her rose too early, she had to wait a bit. It was not necessary to be passive in summer. The author wants to do something in winter, but it is not a good time already. She slept in summer instead of being awake. The speaker thinks over her life and actions and is very sad because of mankind’s stupidity.

The poem “A Daughter of Eve” written by Christina Rossetti is full of sorrow. The author describes human inability to do things in right time. People tend to be passive when it is necessary to do something important and vice versa. We cannot manage our time. I know this on my own example. It is easy to plan something, but it is very complicated to do the first step towards the goal, especially if there are numerous steps ahead. Only an intelligent person is able to manage his/her own time. The author of the poem understands this and calls herself a fool because she has difficulties with doing necessary things in the right time. It is a complicated task for her. While I was reading the poem, I even imagined a woman sitting at her desk and feeling sorrow because of her past laziness. The poem seems to have no ending. Perhaps, the writer wanted to leave this part of the text for the readers to complete. I think that the character’s sorrow is a good sign; it is a motivation to go ahead and do the things that should have been done much time ago. The poem ends with the moment when the speaker considers her mistakes and I think that the poem is called this way, not by chance. The author alluded to the biblical Eve, who was damned by God together with her husband because of disobedience. Refusal to do something is also an example of disobedience to man’s necessity to do something in order to earn for living or help other people.

“For My Daughter” by Antonella Anedda

This poem shows the relations between mother and her daughter. In the beginning of the writing, the child fights the mother and tells that something is not fair. She does not like the mother’s strictness. However, she is not able to oppose it somehow. A bit later, the girl is described as a very active person. She knows that her mother loves her very much and kisses the mother’s back during quarrels. By the end of the poem, we get to know that the woman gave birth to the child not naturally. The doctors had to use scalpel. In the last lines, the speaker stresses the connection with the daughter and compares their relations to the canvas created by Giovanni Bellini. It is “A virgin and a sweet rabbit”.

In “For My Daughter” Antonella Anedda demonstrates the connection between the daughter and her mother. They are dependent on each other. The mother loves her daughter and cannot live without her as, actually, it is a part of her own body. The daughter cannot exist without her mother because she is in need of care and attention that can be given only by this parent. To my mind, the poem shows the beauty of being a mother. It is a true happiness to have someone to love, someone who had been taken from your body. It is very pleasant to realize that you have given birth to a new life, a new person. It is unknown who the child will be. Perhaps, she will become a famous actress or even a politician. In any case, the mother will always love this girl, whoever she may become. It does not matter. Love and understanding between parents and children are the most important things in the world. The poem written by Antonella Anedda makes me feel sympathy to both the speaker and her daughter. They seem to be very friendly and loving, despite of quarrels they may have because of daughter’s disobedience. They seem to enjoy life and value love existing in their souls.