English III Poetry Project
By: Jacob Marks
War Baby
He has not even seen you, he
Who gave you your mortality;
And you, so small, how can you guess
His courage or his loveliness?
Yet in my quiet mind I pray
He passed you on the darkling way -
His death, your birth, so much the same -
And holding you, breathed once your name.
- Pamela Holmes
Paraphrase
There's a soldier in war and he found out that his father died in battle.
He prays and thinks about how his father served for his country and now he is in his footsteps.
Connotation
Darkling way. This means that he is going to go into the darkness of war as his father did.
Shifts
Yet in my quiet mind I pray
He passed you on the darkling way
He passed you on the darkling way
This is a shift because he talks about how he prays in his mind then goes to his father passing on the path of being a soldier.
Title Revisited
After reading the poem I say the title is about a soldier carrying on his dead father's name.