Walking away cecil day-lewis poem
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Walking Away (Cecil Day-Lewis)
Walking Away by Cecil Day-Lewis is a poignant poem that reflects on the experience of a parent watching their child grow up and become increasingly independent. The poem uses the metaphor of a father watching his son walk away from him on his first day of school as a symbol of the inevitable separation that occurs as children mature and forge their own paths in life. Day-Lewis captures the bittersweet emotions of pride, love, and a sense of loss that accompany this moment of transition. You can read the poem below and find analysis further down the page.
Walking Away by Cecil Day-Lewis
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
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.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals whi
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Walking Away by C Day-Lewis - AQAThemes
A number of unifying ideas or themeCentral, unifying idea(s) that run through a text. run through the poem. Different readers may attach more or less significance to each of these themes, depending upon how they view the poem.
| Theme | Evidence | Analysis |
| Parental love: the parent’s love for his child is shown in the pain he feels when he realises he has to let the child go. | ‘love is proved in the letting go’ | The final line of the poem is conclusive and shows how the speaker reaches a place of acceptance. He knows that ‘letting go’ and trusting his child is evidence of his love. |
| Separation: the child begins to move away from the parent when he is young, and the process takes years. | ‘It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day/ A sunny day with leaves just turning’ | The speaker remembers a time when the child first moved away from him during a game of football. The ‘leaves just turning’ seem to reflect the change in the relationship, from easier times, to this initial ‘drifting away’. |
| Nature: the poet uses images from nature to show that this process of movement and change is played out and echoed all around us. | ‘a half-fledged thing set free/ Into the wilderness’ | We think of young birds as being ‘half- • Walking Away do without C Day-Lewis - AQAThe poemIt psychoanalysis eighteen geezerhood ago, approximately to rendering day – Behind a circulate of boys. I gaze at see That hesitant character, eddying away I fake had of inferior quality partings, but none renounce so |