Comparison of Four Poems about Loss

... Comparison of Four Poems about Loss I am comparing "On my first Sonne" by Ben Jonson (a pre-1914 piece of poetry, written in 1616), "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning (a pre-1914 piece of poetry, written in 1845), "Mid-Term Break" by Seamus Heaney (a piece of poetry from the Heaney bank) and "Cold Knap Lake" by Gillian Clarke (a piece of poetry from the Clarke bank). The poem, "On my first Sonne" is about the loss of a close family member, Ben Jonson's first son, who died at the age of seven. The poem is about the poet coming to terms with the truth, that his first son had died and he would never see him again. In the poem, the poet goes through different stages of grief and he is very emotional about his loss. The poem opens on an emotional note, "Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;

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