Poem 5 ENGLISH - Poem 5

Father and son, we both must live
On the same globe and the same land.
He speaks: I cannot understand
Myself, why anger grows from grief.
We each put out an empty hand,
Questions :
Q.1. How does the poet feel when his relationship with his son comes under strain?
Q.2. What could be the cause for their distancing from each other?

I would have him prodigal, returning to
His father’s house, the home he knew,
Rather than see him make and move
His world, I would forgive him too,
Shaping from sorrow a new love.
Questions :
Q.1. What is the father prepared to accept?
Q.2. What does the father not want his son to do?

This child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I cannot share
Silence surrounds us.
Questions :
Q.1. What kind of child had he desired to design?
Q.2. Why does the speaker say ‘this child’ not ‘my child?

Yet have I killed
The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine?
We speak like strangers, there’s no sign
Of understanding in the air.
Questions :
Q.1. What does the word ‘seed’ signify?
Q.2. What ‘land’ does the speaker speak of?

I do not understand this child
Though we have lived together now
In the same house for years.
I know Nothing of him, so try to build
Up a relationship from how
He was when small.
Questions:
Q.1. Who have lived in the same house? How long?
Q.2. Why does the father say that he knows nothing of him?

‘On the same globe and the same land’

‘His world. I would forgive him too’

‘Silence surrounds us.

‘This child is built to my design Yet what he loves I cannot share’.

‘The land is his and none of mine?

Does the poem have a consistent rhyme scheme?

Identify the phrases and lines that indicate distance between father and son.

How is the father’s helplessness brought out in the poem?

Does the poem talk of an exclusively personal experience or is it fairly universal?

Explain the message of the poem ‘Father to Son.