Digging by Seamus Heaney, Catrin by Gillian Clarke, Little Boy Lost, :: English Literature

Digging by Seamus Heaney, Catrin by Gillian Clarke, Little Boy Lost, Little Boy Found by William Blake and On My First Son by Ben Jonson. POEMS The four poems that I have chosen to study are Digging by Seamus Heaney, Catrin by Gillian Clarke, Little Boy Lost, Little Boy Found by William Blake and On My First Son by Ben Jonson. All of theses poems express an issue of love and are all indirectly linked by some way or another on the issue of love. Digging is a poem about admiration, how Seamus Heaney as a young boy looks up to his predecessors and how he has; â€Å"No spade to follow men like them† (Line 28 digging) Catrin has a basic structure of love that is becoming more and more common in today’s world, and that is emotional love. Catrin doesn’t show love for her child but it is still a bond between them and can never be broken. There are two lines in catrin which dispute this idea. â€Å"From the hearts pool that old rope, tightening about my life† (lines 25-26 catrin) The emotional love shall never be broken despite there being no apparent love. The other quote being lines â€Å"Our first confrontation, the tight red rope of love which we both fought over.† (Lines 7-9 catrin) The umbilical cord holding the two together. Little Boy Lost Little Boy Found, this poem has love within the family and the desperation of a father to find his son again, eventually he does and he is metaphorically spoken of as god. â€Å"But god ever nigh appeared like his father in white.† (Lines 3-4 Little boy found) On my first son is about a child growing up and ‘leaving the nest’ for the father is upset that his little boy has grown up and he can no long be with him all the time. This is made clear by line eight. â€Å"And if no other misery, yet age!† (Line 8 On my first son) This comments on the only misery being age and explains the whole poem. I have chosen Digging and Catrin because I feel I understand both the poems much better. Digging is a poem about childhood. The whole poem is triggered by a few senses, these being the sound and smell of a spade slicing through the earth. It is as if the poet Seamus Heaney is sat at his window and is stuck on what to write. There is a physical tie of respect in his family. He loves and admires his grandfather and father and remembers little things such as carrying out tasks as simple as carrying him