In order to answer an essay question on any poem it is vital that you understand what it is about. This section includes:
- The poem in a nutshell
- A ‘translation’ of the poem, section-by-section
- A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Cecil Day Lewis’ intention and message
Walking Away in a nutshell
Walking Away, written by the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, a former Poet Laureate, reflects on the separation and distance which occurs between parent and child as time passes. The autobiographical poem explores the painful process as a natural part of life and relationships.
Walking Away overview
Lines 1-2
“It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day —
A sunny day with leaves just turning,”
Translation
- The poem begins with a measure of time passing, suggesting the triggering of a memory
Day Lewis’ intention
- Day Lewis’ speaker marks the moment as significant as they remember a day eighteen years ago
- The poet uses natural imagery to describe the day as autumnal, creating a nostalgic mood
Lines 3-4
“The touch-lines new-ruled — since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite”
Translation
- The poem’s speaker describes the day, eighteen years ago, when they watched their child play football
Day Lewis’ intention
- The poet breaks the speaker’s voice here to indicate the emotional memory of his child’s first game of football
Lines 5-7
“Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school”
Translation
- The poem’s speaker describes the painful moment the child leaves their side to go to school
- The speaker compares the separation as their child walks away to a satellite pulled out of its orbit
Day Lewis’ intention
- The poet vividly describes the way the child leaves them, disappearing into a group of children, to convey the loss the parent still feels as they remember
- Day Lewis compares the dependant relationship of parent and child to a satellite in its orbit, describing how each life revolves around the other
- However, the violent image of the satellite pulled out of orbit conveys the way the parent feels as their child is no longer dependent on them and their life no longer revolves around the parent
Lines 8-10
“With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.”
Translation
- The speaker describes the child as unprepared, like a baby bird as it is “set free” from a nest
- He describes the way the child walks; he is nervous as he does not know where to go
Day Lewis’ intention
- The poet uses natural imagery again to present the natural process of separation in family relationships:
- Here, he uses the image of a baby bird flying from its nest into the dangerous wilderness to represent the child leaving the safety of the home
- The imagery conveys the parents own feelings of hesitation
Lines 11-12
“That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem
Translation
- The speaker continues to describe the child’s anxiousness as they leave
- The parent describes the child as if they are floating away
- They compares the child to a seed falling into the ground
Day Lewis’ intention
- Day Lewis presents the process of the child leaving and beginning their own life as natural
- The poet uses comparisons with nature to consider how the emotions the child and parent feel as they separate are a natural part of life
- The new life the child is about to experience is conveyed with the simile, comparing the child to a seed about to grow
Lines 13-15
“Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take — the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.”
Translation
- The speaker begins to reflect on these ideas:
- The speaker explains their confusion about the pain and love (the give-and-take) which is a necessary part of relationships and growing up
- They acknowledge the power of nature, which creates pain (fire) to strengthen us and mold us(clay)
Day Lewis’ intention
- Day Lewis presents the process of the child leaving and beginning their own life as confusing:
- He considers how love and growing up is a painful, yet powerful and natural process
Lines 16-17
“I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly”
Translation
- The speaker explains that the painful emotions on the day their child went to school for the first time does not compare with any other moment of separation, suggesting the power of family love
- The speaker vividly describes the impact of the memory
Day Lewis’ intention
- The poet uses language which presents the relentless agony of parent and child separation:
- The memory “gnaws” even eighteen years later
- The poet ends the line with the word “roughly” to highlight the harsh emotions felt
Lines 18-20
“Saying what God alone could perfectly show —
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.”
Translation
- The speaker ends the monologue referring to religious ideas:
- The speaker believes God and nature are at work in the process
- He believes love is felt most strongly at moments of separation
Day Lewis’ intention
- Day Lewis presents the process of the child leaving and beginning their own life as not only natural, but as part of God’s plan
- He ends the poem with a conclusion, prefaced by a dash, that painful separations can build our character and prove our love