"Prayer Before Birth"

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

by Louis MacNeice

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Another poem that has lived in my head for years, and I came back to it thinking that it probably fitted my over-simple adolescent way of looking at the world, but would seem a little preachy now. But the poem re-encountered turned out to be every bit as powerful as I remembered it, and such a joy to read aloud for its music.

Louis MacNeice wrote Prayer Before Birth in 1944, during the bombing of London, but the words would be as relevant in any age, the prayer a universal one.

It's a dramatic monologue giving voice to a child in the womb, as yet unspoiled by the ways of the world he is about to enter, and a clean slate on which the world will write his fate.

The poem flows from stanza to stanza in a rapid incantation of all the possible dangers the child may face beginning with the creatures of fable and nightmare, and moving on rapidly to include the horrors created by humanity.

The repetition of words and sounds - rhyme and alliteration (the repetition of initial sounds) is particularly striking:

... tall walls wall me,/
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,/
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

There's a change in tone in the third stanza, which is a plea for all the things the child prays life will offer him: Not just a pure physical environment to grow up in, but also clear moral guidelines. Surely such things are the right of any child?

The pace of the poem builds rapidly as a whole catalogue of evils is compiled. The child asks for forgiveness for sins not his own, but rather the sins the world will commit through him (including even murder) as his individuality is hijacked by a morally corrupt regime.

One of the most frightening facts about war surely is this. That when the killers and perpetrators of atrocities are later unmasked, they turn out to be so utterly ordinary, so much like ourselves. While:

... the man who is beast or who thinks he is God

is probably a reference to Hitler.

MacNiece controls the pace so beautifully through punctutation, especially at the end of the poem. The penultimate stanza is one long breathless sentence and the repetition of words and sounds show the agitation of the speaker. We've had the catalogue of possible evils given to us - and now the child prays to be taught how to cope with the worst that the world may throw at him or he will end up a man totally undone, completely lost. The images (thistledown, spilled water) are of total disintegration.

The pace slows right down in the last two stanza with its two stark statements. He prays not to become "a stone" having lost all humanity, or to be destroyed.

The last sentence shocks. As it should.

(You can hear the poet reading this piece here).