'First Sight’ describes young lambs taking their first steps into the big wide world in the snow. The poem meditates upon the fact that the animals can have no grasp of the world beneath the snow. The poem prevalently touches upon innocence, with terms that associated with innocence: lambs, snow, and the new-born.
First Sight by Philip Larkin
Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.
As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.
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Fold |
A sheepfold
or pen. An enclosure for sheep providing shelter and safety |
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ewe |
A female
sheep. In the poem the ewe refers to the lamb’s mother |
Answer the questions below. Support each answer with a short quotation from the poem.
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1 |
What do you notice about the form of the poem? [shape,
rhyme scheme, rhythm, line structure] |
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2 |
Who is speaking? |
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3 |
What is the setting? [physical surroundings, time of day,
time of year] |
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4 |
What is the poem about? [narrative, description,
reflection] |
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5 |
Identify important language features [phonetic techniques,
imagery, language features] |
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6 |
How do these techniques influence readers? |
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7 |
Comment on a theme in the poem |
What do you think the impact of the rhyme scheme has on us, the readers?
