The two poems successfully bring about the emotions of sadness and loss by conflicting feelings dealing with death. Both the poems are narrated from the parent’s view addressing his or her child that has died or is about to, and this brings about emotions of grief in the reader as well.

The two poems set the mood and atmosphere in the first stanza. In “Refugee mother and child” Chinua Achebe says “for a son she would soon have to forget” brings about sadness and loss because she cannot do anything about it and tells the reader the poem is about a dying son she cannot save. The reader can imagine what she is going through as a mother watching her child knowing he is about to die soon. In the poem “On my first sonne” the first thing the father says is the word “farewell” and from this the reader can tell the poem is about the father bidding farewell to his treasured son. In the same way Chinua Achebe tries to bring about sadness so does Ben Johnson as they both watch what they have lost or are about to loose.

‘On my first sonne’ and ‘Refugee mother and child’ both have many bib...

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...ild” does not have much punctuation which is effective because it makes the reader think about the meanings behind these lines.

Even though “Refugee mother and child” is more applicable and easy to understand for me “On my first sonne” was better, it is well written because it has many visual images. What I like best about this poem is that Ben Jonson does not only look at the negativity he also looks at the positive part that his son might be in a better place so the reader gets to feel mixed emotions which I found very interesting.