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Child Of Our Time
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Child Of Our Time
An innocent child that is a victim of this time .
The poem is an elegy and a lullaby .
The tone of the poem switches between tenderness and outrage .
The first stanza is about Boland trying to create harmony from the terrible chaos and ''discord '' of the child's death .
In the second stanza the poem reflects on the failings of the adult world that contributed to the death of the child .
The poem is inspired by the harrowing image of a dead child being carried from the rubble following a bomb explosion in Dublin in 1974 .
The final stanza holds out the hope we might learn from the child's death ,''your final cry ''..your murder... the fact you cannot listen'' .
The key theme of the poem is an unspeakable tragedy of the child's violent death .
The poem long lines reflect the sad mood of the poem
