To An Unborn Pauper child,To An Unborn Pauper child summary,to an unborn pauper child critical analysis

 An Analysis of the Poem 

'To An Unborn Pauper Child'  -

 To sleep the eternal sleep though its hour of birth is approaching near. The poet warns the child that doomsters or deities of fate are heaping hard times of pain and woe on human life. The spectres of time are turning the spontaneously happy moments (songsingings) to fearful ones. He asks the child to listen to the sighs of countless people. In this world, laughter fails, greetings die in the throat. Hope diminishes; faiths lose their impact and cease to be. Affections freeze and enthusiasms abate. By being born on earth, the child cannot redress these pitiful things. Hardy says that if he had the attention of the babies in the womb before their time on earth started, and if they in turn had the choice to decide whether they should live or die, he would describe to them the conditions of the earth and ask whether they were willing to be born under these circumstances. But this is a futile desire, as his warning would never reach the baby that is locked away in its mother's womb. None would be able to describe the plan that life has in store for them. And so the baby will be born ignorant of what awaits it in this world, even though earth shattering things are occurring here. The poet says that he would gladly find some enclosed plot in the wide expanse of the earth, where the child would remain without a tear or disquietude. But the poet admits his incapacity to do this, as he is as weak as the baby. He cannot change the common destiny to a rare one. 

So, since he is unable to change the fate of the baby or to give warning of what is in store for it, he asks the child to come and dwell on the earth. And because humans are by nature happily optimistic, visionary and not given to reason, he can hope and wish that the baby, once it is born, will live in love, good health, friendship and possibilities galore. He dreams that the child will attain joys which are rarely attained by mankind. Hardy's fatalism and pessimism is indisputably evident in the poem. The poet begins in utmost despair and speaks in a doom-filled voice that nothing is pleasant or promising for the yet-to-be-born child. But in the last stanza there is resignation in his tone and the poem ends by expressing a fervent prayer that things may be better for the child.