A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London is an interesting poem that captures the others thoughts on the death of the child rather than on the child itself. The poem is split into four stanzas each of which containing six lines, as well as following a rhyme scheme of abcabc. In stanza three line four the poet is makes a statement that is the crux of the poem, “Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath with any further elegy of innocence and youth.” Here the poet is reminding his readers that we should not waste our breath with sad words for the dead child. Instead in the final stanza he tells us, “The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother, secret by the unmourning water of the riding Thames. After the first death, there is no other.” The poet is instead trying to bring a sense of relief into the death of the child, because no the child is free from the effects of aging, “grains beyond age,” if nature is not mourning for her, “Thames”, then why should we mourn her death. The last line further reiterates the authors point when he says, “after the first death, there is no other,” here we see that nothing will bring the child back and that death is an ultimate reality that cannot be undone, this further fuels his argument that sad words should not be uttered for the dead youth. The poem’s shift comes after the second stanza once the author has reiterated the ways of mourning for man, he then uses the last two stanzas to give his opinion on why mankind should not mourn for the child but rather be grateful she is gone from the ravages of time and nature.