Guidelines

• Your essay should present a clear, arguable thesis statement that addresses the poem's main message about love and loss.
• Support your argument with specific textual evidence (quotations and close readings of the poem).
• Analyze at least two or three poetic devices and clarify how each enhances the poem's overall meaning.
• Reflect on how the shift in tone throughout the stanzas emphasizes the speaker's emotional journey.
• Your conclusion should consider the poem's universal significance — in what ways does Day-Lewis's personal experience resonate with a broader human truth?

Assessment Focus

Argumentation, textual evidence, literary analysis

In your essay, be sure to

• Identify and analyze at least two specific poetic devices (e.g., simile, enjambment, rhyme scheme, diction) and explain how each enhances the poem's central argument.
• Discuss how the speaker's tone shifts (or remains consistent) throughout the poem and what that indicates about the nature of parental love.
• Address the final stanza directly, explaining how it resolves — or complicates — the tension established earlier in the poem.
• Support all claims with direct textual evidence (quotations and line references).

Assessment focus

Argumentation, close reading, use of textual evidence, analytical writing