Prayer Before Birth by Louis MacNeice

Prayer Before Birth by Louis MacNeice is a dark and unsettling exploration of the fears of an unborn child. This study guide outlines the meaning of the poem, its structure, form and language, to add to ThinkLit’s collection of study guides on the CCEA GCSE English Literature Identity Anthology. See the end of the post for links to the other poems and revision resources.

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.

'Prayer Before Birth' Context

Louis MacNeice: A Brief Biography

Louis MacNeice was born on September 12, 1907, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. You can see his family’s census return from the 1911 Census here at the National Archives for Ireland. And if you are really interested, you can see MacNeice’s birth record here at irishgenealogy.ie.

MacNeice came of age during a tumultuous period in history, which significantly influenced his work. He studied at prestigious institutions, including Sherborne School in Dorset, England and Merton College, Oxford. His early exposure to literature and education shaped his poetic sensibilities.

In terms of his personal life, MacNeice’s experiences were marked by both artistic exploration and the challenges of the era. He married Mary Ezra in 1930, and they had a son, Daniel. His marriage and family life added a dimension of personal experience and reflection to his poetry. MacNeice’s works often explored themes of identity, social issues, and the human condition, reflecting the intellectual and emotional currents of his time.

MacNeice's city poems:

Birmingham

Smoke from the train-gulf hid by hoardings blunders upward, the brakes of cars
Pipe as the policeman pivoting round raises his flat hand, bars
With his figure of a monolith Pharaoh the queue of fidgety machines
(Chromium dogs on the bonnet, faces behind the triplex screens).
Behind him the streets run away between the proud glass of shops,
Cubical scent-bottles artificial legs arctic foxes and electric mops,
But beyond this centre the slumward vista thins like a diagram:
There, unvisited, are Vulcan’s forges who doesn’t care a tinker’s damn.

Splayed outwards through the suburbs houses, houses for rest
Seducingly rigged by the builder, half-timbered houses with lips pressed
So tightly and eyes staring at the traffic through bleary haws
And only a six-inch grip of the racing earth in their concrete claws;
In these houses men as in a dream pursue the Platonic Forms
With wireless and cairn terriers and gadgets approximating to the fickle norms
And endeavour to find God and score one over the neighbour
By climbing tentatively upward on jerry-built beauty and sweated labour.

The lunch hour: the shops empty, the shopgirls’ faces relax
Diaphanous as green glass, empty as old almanacs
As incoherent with ticketed gewgaws tiered behind their heads
As the Burne-Jones windows in St. Philip’s broken by crawling leads;
Insipid colour, patches of emotion, Saturday thrills
(This theatre is sprayed with ‘June’) – the gutter take our old playbills,
Next week-end it is likely in the heart’s funfair we shall pull
Strong enough on the handle to get back our money; or at any rate it is possible.

On shining lines the trams like vast sarcophagi move
Into the sky, plum after sunset, merging to duck’s egg, barred with mauve
Zeppelin clouds, and Pentecost-like the cars’ headlights bud
Out from sideroads and the traffic signals, crême-de-menthe or bull’s blood,
Tell one to stop, the engine gently breathing, or to go on
To where like black pipes of organs in the frayed and fading zone
Of the West the factory chimneys on sullen sentry will all night wait
To call, in the harsh morning, sleep-stupid faces through the daily gate.

Carrickfergus

I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams:
Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams

The little boats beneath the Norman castle,
The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;
The Scotch Quarter was a line of residential houses
But the Irish Quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.

The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,
The yarn-milled called its funeral cry at noon;
Our lights looked over the Lough to the lights of Bangor
Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.

The Norman walled this town against the country
To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave
And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting
The List of Christ on the cross, in the angle of the nave.

I was the rector’s son, born to the Anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.

The war came and a huge camp of soldiers
Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long
Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice
And the sentry’s challenge echoing all day long.

I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents
Contracted into a puppet world of sons
Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt mines
And the soldiers with their guns.

The significance of World War II on 'Prayer Before Birth'

“Prayer Before Birth” by Louis MacNeice, published in 1944, emerged during the harrowing years of World War II. This poem captures the pervasive fear, uncertainty, and moral upheaval of the period. As the world was engulfed in conflict, MacNeice’s poem stands as a poignant plea for purity and innocence in a world plagued by evil deeds.

Amidst the horrors of war, MacNeice’s verses depict the speaker’s desperate desire to be shielded from the darkness of the world before they are even born. The poem serves as a powerful commentary on the atrocities of WWII, encompassing the Holocaust, bombings, and the pervasive sense of moral decay.

Here are some facts to convey just some of the atrocities of WWII:

The Holocaust (1941-1945): The systematic genocide of approximately six million Jews by Nazi Germany in concentration camps and mass shootings.
Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 1945): The United States dropped atomic bombs on these Japanese cities, resulting in the deaths of over 200,000 people, primarily civilians.
Nanjing Massacre (1937-1938): Japanese forces invaded the Chinese city of Nanjing, leading to the brutal rape, torture, and murder of an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers.
Babi Yar Massacre (1941): Nazi forces executed approximately 33,000 Jewish men, women, and children in a ravine near Kyiv, Ukraine, in just two days.
Unit 731 (1937-1945): The Japanese Imperial Army conducted biological and chemical warfare experiments on thousands of Chinese, Korean, and Allied prisoners, resulting in horrific deaths and suffering.
Rape of Nanking (1937): Alongside the Nanjing Massacre, Japanese troops subjected thousands of Chinese women to sexual violence and brutality.
Auschwitz Concentration Camp: One of the most infamous Nazi death camps, where around 1.1 million people, primarily Jews, were systematically murdered through gas chambers, forced labor, and medical experiments.
Holodomor (1932-1933): A man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine caused by Joseph Stalin’s policies, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainians due to starvation and related causes.

MacNeice’s words convey a profound sense of vulnerability and the universal longing for goodness in the face of unprecedented global turmoil. In the following sections of this study guide, we will delve deeper into the themes, imagery, and literary techniques employed in “Prayer Before Birth.”

Prayer Before Birth: Form and Structure

Form

‘Prayer Before Birth’ is a dramatic monologue. The persona in the poem is a child in the womb, made clear in both the title ‘Prayer Before Birth’ and the opening line, ‘I am not yet born…’

As the speaker outlines their fear of the world around them, it is clear from the vocabulary and understanding that the poet is being creative with this voice. An unborn child would clearly be unable to think or understand the world in this way. The unborn child has the knowledge and understanding of someone who has seen the world at its worst. There is a glimmer of hope in stanza three which again is to be beyond the scope of a foetus. But the effect is strong nonetheless; the reader suspends their disbelief and the result is a haunting plea from the most vulnerable of people.

Verse Structure

‘Prayer Before Birth’ has an irregular verse structure. Stanza one is 3 lines, two and three are 4 lines, stanza four is 6 lines, five is 7 lines, six is 3 lines, stanza seven is 10 lines and the final stanza, eight, is 2 lines.

The irregular verse structure creates a sense of urgency and emotional intensity. The unpredictable line lengths and stanza breaks disrupt the reader’s expectations, mirroring the speaker’s feelings of fear and desperation. This irregularity makes the reader keenly aware of the speaker’s vulnerability and the gravity of their plea.

In addition, the irregular structure shifts the reader’s focus from the form of the poem to its content. It allows the reader to immerse themselves in the words and the speaker’s thoughts without being overly distracted by a rigid structure or predictable rhythm.

Finally, the irregular verse structure mirrors the chaotic and uncertain world that the speaker fears. Just as the speaker is uncertain about what awaits them, the reader experiences a sense of unpredictability in the poem’s structure.

Rhyme Scheme

‘Prayer Before Birth’ is written in free verse with a very irregular rhyme scheme, however, there are some distinct patterns. The first and last line of every stanza, whether short or long stanzas, is the word ‘me’. The repeated sound creates a pseudo-rhyme scheme; in fact, 20 of the 39 lines end in the word ‘me’.

Language Devices, Imagery and Themes

Language Devices

Anaphora: anaphora is a special type of alliteration in which the same words are used at the beginning of a series of phrases. In the case of ‘Prayer Before Birth’, the repetition of ‘I am not yet born…’ creates structure in the poem, and mimics the sound of repetitive prayers which might be heard in church, reminding us that this poem is a prayer. The phrase ‘Let not …’ begins several lines of this poem, again echoing the language of liturgy.
Alliteration: similar sounds at the beginning of a series of words create echoes and structure in a line. In stanza one, for example, we hear the repetition of the ‘b’ sound in ‘bloodsucking bat’ strongly. The effect is harsh.
Consonance: the ‘t’ sound at the end of the words ‘bat’, ‘rat’ and ‘stoat’ creates a discordant, negative effect. MacNeice uses consonance throughout the poem, perhaps to echo the harsh sounds of the world in the language of the poem.
Imperative verbs: the commanding language of the poem makes clear the speaker’s desperation to be heard, for example, ‘hear me’, ‘console me’, ‘provide me’, ‘forgive me’, ‘rehearse me’, ‘fill me’, etc. While the language is commanding, there is also a note of vulnerability in the pleas of the child.

Imagery

Metaphor: the speaker uses the term ‘freeze my humanity’ to convey their vulnerability: “I am not yet born; O fill me / With strength against those who would freeze my humanity.” Here, the metaphor of freezing humanity suggests the speaker’s fear of becoming emotionally or morally cold in the face of the world’s challenges.
Personification: the speaker attributes human qualities to the non-human entities of the waves and the desert; “the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom.” The waves and the desert are personified, calling out to the unborn child and luring them into different experiences, illustrating the world’s contrasting temptations.
Symbolism: in the poem, the symbol of light is prominent: “birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me.” The white light serves as a symbol of guidance, purity, and hope in the midst of darkness and uncertainty, highlighting the contrast between innocence and corruption.

Themes

Innocence vs. Corruption: The poem repeatedly contrasts the innocence of the unborn child with the corruption and moral decay of the outside world. The speaker pleads for protection against the negative influences of the world, expressing a desire to maintain their purity.
Vulnerability: The speaker’s vulnerability is a central theme. They are entirely dependent on the world around them and seek assurance and guidance to navigate a world filled with dangers, both physical and moral.
Fear: Throughout the poem, there’s a sense of fear and desperation. The speaker urgently pleads for safety and protection, highlighting the harsh realities they anticipate in the world they are about to enter.
Religion: The poem takes on a spiritual and prayer-like quality. The repetitive structure and the use of imperative verbs mirror the structure of prayers, suggesting a spiritual plea for guidance and salvation.
Technological advances: The poem explores the impact of machinery and industrialisation. The context of the machinery of war reveals the speaker’s negative feelings towards industrialisation, with language such as ‘cog in a machine’.
Opposites: The poem presents a dualistic view of the world, with contrasting elements such as light and darkness, good and evil, purity and corruption. These dual concepts underscore the complexity of the world and the speaker’s desire to remain on the side of goodness, as is made clear in the hopeful outlook of stanza three.

Links with other poems in the CCEA Identity Anthology:

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

Both poems look at the world through a wide-angle lens. They explore the doubts and fears of individual humans against the changes of the modern world. There is plenty of scope for comparison and contrast in the irregular rhyme schemes and verse structures.

In Mrs Tilscher's Class by Carol Ann Duffy

Both of these poems explore the corruption of the world in contrast to the child-like innocence of the speaker. As above, there is much scope for contrast in these poems, with contrasting verse structure, rhyme schemes, language choices, and much more.