The Big picture of the poem "On my first Sonne", is the conflict of feelings when dealing with death. Because the death of his son, Ben Jonson, the poet's feelings were uncertain with doubts and sorrow. Some part of his inspiration was buried among his son. Many different atmospheres are created with the feelings and decisions he made.
There is a progression of ideas, reactions and feelings throughout the poem. Although the poem was one whole stanza is divided into three stages: Struggle with death, acceptance of death and the implication of death. In the first five lines, the poet uses a lot of conditionals and declaratives to represent his uncertainty. For example from line five:.
"O, could I loose all father now. For why" .
"could" and would are conditionals, which represents he was nowhere to be found, he did not know what to do.
The poet started to use sibilance and semi-sibilance to link the first stage with the third stage. At this stage, Ben Jonson is finding answers to his questions. Many questions were asked and were not answered; he is comparing his reaction to his son's death to other people. .
"Will man lament the state he should envie?" line 6.
"And, if no other misery, yet age?" line 8.
In line six, the poet is giving a message of do not cry for someone that is going to a better place than the Earth. But he realized that it is very tough to deal with the feelings without tasting sadness, because he loved him so much and his sin was that he had too much hopes in his boy. .
"Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lye" line 9.
In the last four lines, the poet uses imperatives, to represent the strong feelings and the reconciliation with death. There are four imperatives in the entire poem: "Rest", "asked", "say" and "be". The use of these imperatives in the last four lines makes readers emphasize those lines and start questioning about why he use them. Represents that the father has overcome his doubts and uncertainty, and he had already found answers to his questions.
