Prayer Before Birth

Prayer before birth is a poem that is relevant still today and grows more powerful as the world becomes a more dangerous place. It a dramatic monologue.  Written during the second World War, Prayer Before Birth first appeared in MacNeice's book Springboard, 1944. It's the first poem in the book, a sure sign that the poet wanted it to make a big impact. Louis MacNeice's poem captures the fears and anxieties perfectly because the voice is that of the baby, not yet out into the war-torn air. This child’s first prayer upon entering the world is one which calls for protections.  Let us get into a deep analysis.

Stanza 1

The speaker reveals here, that the newborn not only requests protection from evil spirits and disease.   He says about the bat, rat and stoat are aligned with a misfit ghoul; the bat sucks blood, is a vampire. It is a belief- the speaker starts off with the superstitious, showing his fear that the world he is about to live in is probably a bit weird and dangerous.

Stanza 2

The unborn child already seeks help and support. There is fear of being walled in drugged (an age old phenomenon), lied to (fake news is all the rage), tortured on a rack (an old fashioned instrument of torture) and of being bloodied (in battle, on the streets?).These are fears enough for the poor child in utero and the new born asks protection against human race.

Stanza 3

Nature features strongly in this stanza, the most beautiful, hopeful lines in the poem. The element water - the child wants to be able to play in it, the child wants talking trees, all the beautiful things that make a paradise, a healthy, ideal environment in which to live. All his pleadings seem very innocent in context of the poem as a whole. But in war, when situations are bad, then is the time to dream and no way to find a peaceful solution to the devastating war.

Stanza 4

This one has six lines and is the most religious of them all. The speaker asks for forgiveness, is already with sin (a strange notion which implies that there are karmic forces at play). Forgiveness is wanted for all words and thoughts and deeds, which the unborn child may unwittingly, without conscious control, manifest in the world. This seems like a major plea to the divine and a sort of acknowledgment of future evil.

Stanza 5

The idea in this stanza is that all humans are but actors playing different parts. It is a sort of mini play is outlined, the lead part being that of the unborn child interacting with a great cast of characters, from old men to mountains, from lovers to beggars - in the end even the unborn child's children would be a curse.

Stanza 6

The new-born, asks that God would keep him far away from any human being who would give way to resemble a beast. He also asks that he would be kept far away from any man “who thinks he is God”. These two different types of human beings represent two totally opposite ends of the spectrum of humanity. While some give way to every temptation and live like “beasts”, others would view themselves as God himself. This speaker wants nothing to do with either type of human being.

Stanza 7

The longest stanza in the poem. In this stanza, the speaker calls out to God for protection against what the world would want to do to him. He does not want God to allow the people of the world to “freeze [his] humanity”. He does not want to become “a cog in a machine”. The author feels hatred toward war.He does not want to become a “lethal automaton”, trained to kill. He wants freedom from this kind of lifestyle. The speaker makes it quite clear that freedom is paramount if he is to be born. He doesn't want to end up a robot, a mindless killer a soulless number without identity.

Stanza 8

In this final stanza, the speaker asks for protection against being killed. He does not want the enemy to have his life in any way. Throughout Prayer Before Birth, the speaker has asked for protection against every kind of evil. He longed to be kept pure from the evil. Finally, at the end of Prayer Before Birth, he asks God for his very life.  Ironic to imagine a newborn pleading with God for his life, when he has only just been born. It is evident that the author uses a newborn baby as his speaker to cause the readers to realize the fragility of life. This newborn baby has not experienced anything yet, and is in a state of innocence. Yet, the author makes the baby speak as though he were aware already of all of the evil in the world. Thus, he asks God to protect him from evil beings and evil men. Likewise, he asks God to keep him from becoming an evil man himself.

Thus, the newborn, before he is even born, pleads with God for his own protection from all such evil. Better the child is not born alive; better to end its life. This is a harsh ending.

Prayer Before Birth is a passionate poem with unusual structure, diction (language) and resonance.

The syntax contracts and expands, fading off in others. Capitals start a line, lower case continues; long, sentences make up a stanza, a short sentence finishes one off.

Religious allusion occurs: stanza four refers to sins and forgiveness, as if the child is to be born a Christ figure, ready for sacrifice. 

Prayer Before Birth is a free verse poem of 8 stanzas, 39 lines in total. There is no set rhyme scheme, though some lines are repeated perfect rhymes, and no regular metric pattern, though seven out of the eight stanzas have an opening tetrameter line.

Alliteration

Alliterative phrases help bind phonetic texture and interest for the reader. There are several examples.:

Stanza 1: bloodsucking bat

Stanza 2: tall walls wall.....wise lies lure....black racks rack....blood-baths

Stanza 3: grass to grow....trees to talk.....sly to sing

Stanza 4: my words/when...thoughts when they think....treason engendered by traitors....murder by means of my

Stanza 5: parts I must play...lovers laugh...the white/waves....desert calls/ me to doom

Stanza 8: make me.

Anaphora

Repeated phrases in lines create familiarity and reinforce meaning:

Stanzas 1 - 7: I am not yet born

Assonance

Repeated vowels in words close to each other help build phonetic interest and add to musicality:

Stanza 1: bat/rat

Stanza 2: tall walls wall...wise lies...black racks rack

Irony/Paradox

There is a certain irony detailed in stanza six - if the poem is a prayer and humanity the problem then the man who thinks he is God is ironic. Also a paradox. And in stanza four the unborn child is already asking for forgiveness, for future sins.

Metaphor

Occurs in stanzas seven and eight:

would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with / one face

Let them not make me a stone

Personification
When objects and items are given human traits and expression, this is personification. It occurs in stanzas three and five, for example:

trees to talk to me

mountains frown at me

Simile

Occurs in stanza seven:

would / blow me like thistledown

like water held in the / hands

Louis MacNeice

Thus the poet expresses the fear of future through a baby soon to be born.

thank you.