She is a mother, and her heart

   Is breaking in despair.

It has kept me hunted from the very beginning. If the shrieks piercing through the air are quite understandable because a mother undertakes a great deal of effort and pains to give birth to her baby, I lost my track when the mother “is a mother paled with fear”. Isn’t giving a birth to a human being and watching him growing up day by day one of the greatest happiness that mothers can ever ask? Yes, and no. She is a mother. She is a slave.

The poem deeply depicts the storm of agony that a slave mother is suffering when giving a birth. It is not that pain deriving from parturition, it is because she clearly understands that she does not have the ability to protect her baby. She knows that her baby, made of her flesh and bones, will be torn apart from her by these cruel people, and his life will be doomed to be a repentance of her tortuous path. Therefore, her bitter shrieks “rose” into the wild sky, it is a high-pitched piercing sound, but an expression of terror and pain. It is deadly-depressing because no one would thrust a hand to help, it is just lonely and helplessly echoing in the wild sky.

There are pairs of “sad and imploring eyes.” Every glance the mother gives to the baby is full of pain because she knows “he is not hers.” They are the mother’s imploring eyes, she begs a little bit more time to star at her baby. They wouldn’t let her. Every glance is saying hi, and goodbye. They are also the baby’s imploring eyes, he seeks his mother’s breasts and fond arms to hide, seeking mother’s caress and guidance to teach him how to survive in this world. But they wouldn’t let him.

So she “sadly clasped” her baby as a last try to protect him. He is the best gift to her sad life. ” A fountain gushing ever new, amid life’s desert wild.” The use of a metaphor yields a smart contrast which emphasizes the bond between the mother and her baby. The arrival of this newborn meant to the mother is what a fountain meant to the dead desert.

She fought, as a lonely solider. But she knew clearly what it meant to be as a slave mother. All she has left to the world is a baby that is not hers, and these bitter shrieks as the only means to tell the world her angers and agonies.