'Farewell, thou child of my right hand'

It's 'Poetry corner' with another guest spot from my own Dad.

'Here's Ben Jonson writing about the death of his first son, who died of the plague in 1603. So tender and grieving – gives the lie, I think, to the easy assumption that because infant mortality was so high in those times (about a third of all children died before the age of ten) parents didn't feel their losses so much.'


On My First Son
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, 'Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.'
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

Ben Jonson

'Jonson was a mate of Shakespeare's, and Shakespeare also lost his only son Hamnet when Hamnet was only eleven; possibly he died of the plague too. One is tempted to see a reference to this in the following passage from one of his lesser-known plays 'King John':

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

Walking away

This poem, by Cecil Day-Lewis, first appeared in the collection The Gate and Other Poems, published in 1962. It is dedicated to Day-Lewis’s first son, Sean, and recalls a day when he was watching Sean go in to school. It has become one of his most enduring works and in 2001 was chosen by readers of the Radio Times as one of their top ten poems of childhood. Thanks to my Dad for pointing me to it.

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still.  Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

Come on Daddy!

Last week I posted the poem 'Slow down Mummy' by Rebekah Knight, along with my own response, 'Speed up Daddy'. Now Rebekah has very kindly sent me her own response, 'Come on Daddy!' for this blog.

Come on Daddy, don't sit still!
I love you Daddy, I always will. 
Daddy you're home! That's great!
Daddy you're home! The computer can wait.
Let's have a hug at the door.
Put down the remote, and let's fight on the floor.

Let's kick at a ball, or  build a great fort.
You can read me a story, or we can just talk.
Let's go for a ride on our bikes, to the park,
Let's race to the goal post, I'll beat you, I am fast!

Come on Daddy, let's buy an ice cream!
Ask me what I want I be when I'm older, 
Please help me dream!
Come on Daddy, help me get dressed, 
I love the clothes you chose for me, 
All a mis-match! 

Come on daddy, let's jump on the trampoline!
Come on Daddy I want to giggle and scream!
Come on Daddy, a piggy back please?
Oh dear Daddy, I grazed my knees. 
Play with me daddy. Don't sit still!
I love you Daddy. I always will!

Many thanks again to Rebekah for her vision of fatherhood, which is far more warm-hearted than mine, but still doesn't involve a nice sit down.

'That little creature is sitting there, behind the armour'

This is a letter from poet Ted Hughes to his 24-year-old son Nicholas, full of fatherly advice on the vulnerability of our inner child.

When I came to Lake Victoria, it was quite obvious to me that in some of the most important ways you are much more mature than I am. . . . But in many other ways obviously you are still childish — how could you not be, you alone among mankind? It’s something people don’t discuss, because it’s something most people are aware of only as a general crisis of sense of inadequacy, or helpless dependence, or pointless loneliness, or a sense of not having a strong enough ego to meet and master inner storms that come from an unexpected angle. But not many people realise that it is, in fact, the suffering of the child inside them. Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it. So everybody develops a whole armour of secondary self, the artificially constructed being that deals with the outer world, and the crush of circumstances. And when we meet people this is what we usually meet. And if this is the only part of them we meet we’re likely to get a rough time, and to end up making ‘no contact’. But when you develop a strong divining sense for the child behind that armour, and you make your dealings and negotiations only with that child, you find that everybody becomes, in a way, like your own child. It’s an intangible thing. But they too sense when that is what you are appealing to, and they respond with an impulse of real life, you get a little flash of the essential person, which is the child. Usually, that child is a wretchedly isolated undeveloped little being. It’s been protected by the efficient armour, it’s never participated in life, it’s never been exposed to living and to managing the person’s affairs, it’s never been given responsibility for taking the brunt. And it’s never properly lived. That’s how it is in almost everybody. And that little creature is sitting there, behind the armour, peering through the slits. And in its own self, it is still unprotected, incapable, inexperienced. Every single person is vulnerable to unexpected defeat in this inmost emotional self. At every moment, behind the most efficient seeming adult exterior, the whole world of the person’s childhood is being carefully held like a glass of water bulging above the brim. 

'…the whole world of the person's childhood
is being carefully held like
a glass of water bulging at the brim'

And in fact, that child is the only real thing in them. It’s their humanity, their real individuality, the one that can’t understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die, in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. That’s the carrier of all the living qualities. It’s the centre of all the possible magic and revelation. What doesn’t come out of that creature isn’t worth having, or it’s worth having only as a tool — for that creature to use and turn to account and make meaningful. So there it is. And the sense of itself, in that little being, at its core, is what it always was. But since that artificial secondary self took over the control of life around the age of eight, and relegated the real, vulnerable, supersensitive, suffering self back into its nursery, it has lacked training, this inner prisoner. And so, wherever life takes it by surprise, and suddenly the artificial self of adaptations proves inadequate, and fails to ward off the invasion of raw experience, that inner self is thrown into the front line — unprepared, with all its childhood terrors round its ears. And yet that’s the moment it wants. That’s where it comes alive — even if only to be overwhelmed and bewildered and hurt. And that’s where it calls up its own resources — not artificial aids, picked up outside, but real inner resources, real biological ability to cope, and to turn to account, and to enjoy. That’s the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they’re suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That’s why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self — struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence — you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself. The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.

Slow down Mummy / Speed up Daddy

One of the sparks for this blog was a poem that has been widely shared on Facebook recently.

Slow down mummy, there is no need to rush,

slow down mummy, what is all the fuss?
Slow down mummy, make yourself a cup of tea.
Slow down mummy, come and spend some time with me.

Slow down mummy, let's put our boots on and go out for a walk,
let's kick at piles of leaves, and smile and laugh and talk.
Slow down mummy, you look ever so tired,
come sit and snuggle under the duvet and rest with me a while.

Slow down mummy, those dirty dishes can wait,
slow down mummy, lets have some fun, lets bake a cake!
Slow down mummy I know you work a lot,
but sometimes mummy, its nice when you just stop.

Sit with us a minute,
& listen to our day,
spend a cherished moment,
because our childhood is not here to stay! 

Rebekah Knight

Now I have no problem with this poem: it's an admirable sentiment, if perhaps (according to the Mums I have spoken to) a bit of an unachievable ideal.

But why do you never see 'Dad' versions of these poems? When I search for 'slow down Daddy', I just get a lot of tragic stories about drink driving.

As I am sure I'll find myself emphasising time and time again on this blog, I love my boys with all my heart and couldn't be happier with fatherhood and all that it brings. But I still can't help wondering what would a Dad version look like, if we take off the rose-tinted spectacles and view life through the cultural prism of crap Dadding? 

Maybe a little like this. I'm a little worried it doesn't scan.

Speed up daddy, there are dishes to do, 

speed up daddy, I need a big poo.

Speed up daddy, go out and earn more money,

speed up daddy, I'll be fine with mummy.

Speed up daddy, let's capitalise on your obsessional tendencies by tapping you for another collectible trading card game,

speed up daddy, let's wrestle and use you as a punchbag and then when you accidentally drop me on my head ensure you get the blame.

Speed up daddy, me and Mum are snuggled up underneath the duvet,

how about a full English, and a cup of tea wouldn't go amiss, eh?

Speed up daddy, put Capital FM on, even though you have an iTunes library of approximately 15,000 killer tunes culled from a period spreading across 7 decades and really could do an awful lot better than Rhianna's 'Shine bright like a diamond' or Olly Muir's 'Troublemaker' on constant repeat,

Speed up daddy, in this day and age it's not acceptable (quite rightly) to just bring home the bacon and then put your feet up in your favourite seat.

Speed up Daddy, you need to ferry me to a large variety of extra-curricular activities: cubs, gym, football and swimming,

and if you think you can have a lie in when you've got a hangover you've got another thing coming.

We do love you, Daddy, 

Just not as much as Mummy.

It's an inevitable consequence of spending more time with her in the early days,

I wouldn't worry about it.

UPDATE: Rebekah Knight very kindly wrote this special 'Daddy version' for us. I think we can all agree hers is better!