The affliction of Margaret
The poem is obviously about a mother called Margaret, who has lost her son, or rather, lost contact with her son and doesn’t know if he is dead or alive, rich or unfortunate. She really wants to see her son again. In the first stanza, she decides that if her son was dead, she would rather be dead also so that they may be together. She says so that she may ‘rest’ which shows that she is very tired and considers that if she was dead, she would be unable to blame her son and he would be unable to cause her sorrow.
She has not had contact with her only child for seven years, and she has experienced a range of emotions because of this, and she is always plagued by happy thoughts which she cannot hold unto.
She describes her son as ‘beauteous to behold’ which means she considers him to be handsome, and she also thinks of him as well bred, well brought up, and she considers him as resourceful, innocent, and bold. Margaret mentions in line 27, that many years of no contact brings distress to a mother but doesn’t make her love any less.
Stanza five shows that Margaret suffered from the thought that her son might have neglected her and wouldn’t like to think that her son could do such a thing. She cried for her son when no one knew.
She wanted her son to come back to her no matter what had happened, if he was a slave, poor, with no chance of honour or gain. She says that she now sees with better eyes, and that she hates worldly grandeur, which may mean that she previously taught her son to seek after riches and honour.
The 11 stanzas, each with 7 lines, show the mother’s distress and unhappiness with the worry about her son. Enjambment is littered throughout the poem, and each line either has 8 or 9 nine syllables.
Filed under: English Literature
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