Epitaph on her Son H. P.
WHat on Earth deserves our trust ?
Youth and Beauty both are dust.
Long we gathering are with pain,
What one moment calls again.
Seven years childless, marriage past,
A Son, a son is born at last :
So exactly lim'd and fair.
Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air,
As a long life promised,
Yet, in less than six weeks dead.
Too promising, too great a mind
In so small room to be confin'd :
Therefore, as fit in Heav'n to dwell,
He quickly broke the Prison shell.
So the subtle Alchimist,
Can't with Hermes Seal resist
The powerful spirit's subtler flight,
But t'will bid him long good night.
And so the Sun if it arise
Half so glorious as his Eyes,
Like this Infant, takes a shrowd,
Buried in a morning Cloud.
Youth and Beauty both are dust. Long we gathering are with pain,
What one moment calls again.
Seven years childless, marriage past,
A Son, a son is born at last :
So exactly lim'd and fair.
Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air,
As a long life promised,
Yet, in less than six weeks dead.
Too promising, too great a mind
In so small room to be confin'd :
He quickly broke the Prison shell.
So the subtle Alchimist,
Can't with Hermes Seal resist
The powerful spirit's subtler flight,
But t'will bid him long good night.
And so the Sun if it arise
Half so glorious as his Eyes,
Like this Infant, takes a shrowd,
Buried in a morning Cloud.
Katherine Philips
Commentary:
When I first read the title of the poem, I did not know what epitaph was. Then I looked the word up in the dictionary to get a clue of what the poem was going to be about. According to the Merriam-Webster, epitaph is something said in memory of a dead person. From this definition, I knew what the poem was going to be about.
After reading the poem, I noticed that the author used figurative language to come across her audience to express epitaph to her dead son.
First of all, Katherine Philips used a rhetorical question. She says, "What on Earth deserves our trust?" She does not expect a direct response from her audience. She wants to cause an impact on her audience and to cause the readers to think about the question for a minute.
Next, she used a simile to get her point across. She says, " Youth and beauty both are dust." She is saying that youth and beauty are something that they are not and this makes this phrase a simile. What she means by this phrase is that youth and beauty are nothing. At the end of the day, these things are worth nothing. What remains is intelligence. Dust goes with the wind just like youth and beauty.
This poem has a very melancholy tone. The speaker is talking about her son, which died at only six weeks old. This poem is dedicated to the loss of her son.
This poem made me realize that life is not a promise or an automatic given.
When I first read the title of the poem, I did not know what epitaph was. Then I looked the word up in the dictionary to get a clue of what the poem was going to be about. According to the Merriam-Webster, epitaph is something said in memory of a dead person. From this definition, I knew what the poem was going to be about.
After reading the poem, I noticed that the author used figurative language to come across her audience to express epitaph to her dead son.
First of all, Katherine Philips used a rhetorical question. She says, "What on Earth deserves our trust?" She does not expect a direct response from her audience. She wants to cause an impact on her audience and to cause the readers to think about the question for a minute.
Next, she used a simile to get her point across. She says, " Youth and beauty both are dust." She is saying that youth and beauty are something that they are not and this makes this phrase a simile. What she means by this phrase is that youth and beauty are nothing. At the end of the day, these things are worth nothing. What remains is intelligence. Dust goes with the wind just like youth and beauty.
This poem has a very melancholy tone. The speaker is talking about her son, which died at only six weeks old. This poem is dedicated to the loss of her son.
This poem made me realize that life is not a promise or an automatic given.
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