Thoughts On A Prayer Before Birth

While looking at some of my favourite poems the other day, I came across Prayer Before Birth, written by Louis MacNeice during the darkest days of the Second World War.

It’s an eloquent plea for a life free from all the misdeeds and evils that Man was inflicting upon himself and upon the planet. Yes, even in 1944, he was aware of the way in which our depredations were harming Earth. This was 18 years before the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

Interpretations of the poem have suggested that it is a plea to God, or that the unborn child is Jesus. I have read it many times and, although God is mentioned, he does so only to plead that Man should not behave as if he is God. I think he is simply praying to mankind to change their behaviour.

Here is his poem:

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 to 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.

We have signally failed to create the world he wished for. The future seems dreadful, from bloody wars to the gradual, but accelerating change to the climate that he asked us to prevent. We have not managed to prevent any of them. Indeed, we have made everything much worse. I decided to write a poem describing our failure, so here it is:

When I Died

When I died last year, you were not near me
Terrorists took me
With handcuffs they hooked me, defenders forsook me
In tunnels they locked me, with cudgels they socked me
In death they mocked me.

When I died last month, you did forswear me
Nobody mourned me.
No wreaths adorned me, nobody warned me
Soldiers would chill me, rifles would kill me
Before death would still me.

When I died last week, you couldn’t repair me
The bombs that had hushed me
Blew buildings that crushed me, to mincemeat they mushed me
No mercy was shown me, because they disown me
I’m always alone, me.

When I died last night, you couldn’t rear me
In war did you breed me,
No one would succeed me, no food could you feed me
Although I was brave, me, just water you gave me,
In death did you lave me.

When I died this morning, you left nothing to cheer me
No grass here to greet me,
No sheep here to bleat me, no clean air to meet me.
None knew what had ailed me, that mankind had failed me
Desolation assailed me.

When I die tomorrow, you will not hear me
No Earth left to stand me,
No breezes that fanned me, none left to command me
No warp left to weft me for mankind has left me,
And we are bereft, we.