Blog Post 11

The poems “Sir Patrick Spens” and Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” have a lot in common with each other despite the fact that they were written in different times and places. For starters the form of the stanzas in each poem is ABCB. If looking at the surface of each poem the content is very different, one is talking about a captain of a ship in fifteenth century Scotland and the other is about an African American child in Alabama in 1963. When looking at these poems deeper, the similarities start to stand out. In each poem it tells the story of the deaths of the main characters of the poem.

 Each poem shows the outcome of a wicked man’s deeds. In “Sir Patrick Spens” the king is the wicked man (650):

                                    The king has written a braid letter

                                          And signed it wi’ his hand,

And sent is to Sir Patrick Spens,

                                          Was walking on the sands

“O who is this has done this deed,

                                          This ill deed done to me,

To send me out this time o’ the year,

                                          To sail upon the sea?

Then in Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” the explosion at the end of the poem kills the child, which implies that someone must have set up the church to explode.

            The big similarities are related to the women in each story.   In “Sir Patrick Spens” it says, “O long, long may the ladies stand/ Wi’ their gold combs in their hair,” (650), then in “Ballad of Birmingham” it says, “She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,” (956). Showing that in both situations the women in the poems are waiting for someone while they are doing something the usually do daily, like brushing their hair. These women are waiting for someone that will never come again. This is seen in “Sir Patrick Spens” when it says, “Waiting for their own dear lords/ For they’ll see them no more.” (650), and then in Randall’s poem it says (957),

                                                But that smile was the last smile

                                                To come upon her face …

                                                Calling for her child …

                                                “Oh, here’s the shoe my baby wore,

                                                But, baby, where are you?

The people close to these women are never returning, which causes these women to constantly be waiting and wishing that their loved ones will come home.

            When looking at both poems it can be seen that no matter the time or place, wicked people and their choices can have devastating outcomes that not only affect a single person, but all those around.