Autobiography poem by louis macneice poem

This is a haunting poem about the tragic death of the poet's mother, a loss he never fully came to terms with, and one that cast a long shadow over him for the.

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David Sutton

This week’s poem by the Irish poet Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) is a kind of balancing act, self-revealing yet reticent, the trauma it turns on evident yet not explicit, controlled and distanced by the ballad form, so that without knowledge of the context the reader is like someone looking over the edge of a boat at a nameless shadow moving in the depths below. Awareness of the poet’s childhood circumstances provides most of the answer: his mother died when Louis was seven, having spent her last year in a Dublin nursing home, and Louis obscurely blamed himself for her death, his birth having been a difficult one. But the import of the refrain remains a little elusive. ‘Come back early or never come’ – is Louis talking to himself? To his mother’s shade? Whatever the case, it seems to me, as so often with MacNeice, a poem at once skilful and disturbing.

Note: ‘wore his collar the wrong way round’ – MacNeice’s father was a Protestant minister.

Autobiography

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Louis Macneice

12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963 / Belfast

My father made the walls resound,
He wore his collar the wrong way round.

When I was five the black dreamscame;
Nothing after was quite the same.

When I woke they did not care;
Nobody, nobody was there.

In my childhood trees were green
And there was plenty to be seen.

When my silent terror cried,
Nobody, nobody replied.

I got up; the chilly sun
Saw me walk away alone.

My mother wore a yellow dress;
Gentle, gently, gentleness.

The dark was talking to the dead;
The lamp was dark beside my bed.

Come back early or never come.
Come back early or never come.
Come back early or never come.
Come back early or never come.
Come back early or never come.
Come back early or never come.
Come back early or never come.
Come back early or never come.

•

David Sutton

This week’s poem bygd the Irish poet Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) is a kind of balancing act, self-revealing yet reticent, the trauma it turns on evident yet not explicit, controlled and distanced bygd the ballad form, so that without knowledge of the context the reader is like someone looking over the edge of a boat at a nameless shadow moving in the depths below. Awareness of the poet’s childhood circumstances provides most of the answer: his mother died when Louis was seven, having spent her last year in a Dublin nursing home, and Louis obscurely blamed han själv for her death, his birth having been a difficult one. But the import of the refrain remains a little elusive. ‘Come back early or never come’ – fryst vatten Louis talking to himself? To his mother’s shade? Whatever the case, it seems to me, as so often with MacNeice, a poem at once skilful and disturbing.

Note: ‘wore his collar the wrong way round’ – MacNeice’s father was a Protestant minister.

Autobiography