C.L.M.

About the Author & Poem

John Masefield (1878–1967): An English poet and writer who served as the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom for 37 years. He is remembered for his classic poems of the sea and his deep lyrical sensitivity.

The Poem: "C.L.M." (the initials of the poet's mother, Caroline Louisa Masefield) is a deeply emotional poem. Masefield expresses profound gratitude and guilt regarding the physical and emotional cost his mother paid to bring him into the world. The poem moves from personal grief to a powerful social commentary on the debt men owe to women, noting that true gratitude lies in making the lives of all women better and freer.

I. Comprehension Questions (Brief Answers)

Answer: (b) has a hint that he was born at the cost of his mother's life.

Answer: (b) The 'beauty' of her physical and emotional trauma at the birth of the child.

Answer: To emphasize that his very birth and life are responsible for his mother's partial death and that every movement of his in his mother's womb destroyed a part of her life.

Answer: 'It' refers to the life the mother gave to the boy.

Answer: a. her son, the poet.

Answer: (c) the fading memory of his mother in his mind.

Answer: d. both (a) that he has grown so much physically and (b) that he has grown so unworthy of all her sacrifice.

Answer: 'She would not know her little son, I am so grown.'

Answer: 'What have I done to keep in mind my debt to her and womankind?'

Answer: The poet means that a person should repay his mother not just by making her life better, but by making other women's lives also better.

a) What is compared to a leech?
Answer: The baby inside the mother's womb.

b) How is it a leech?
Answer: It sucks on the life of the mother.

c) What is unusual about the use of the word 'leech'd'?
Answer: Birth is a very significant moment... it signifies the separation of the baby from the mother and the need for the baby to fend for itself to a certain extent. It has come out of a warm, protective cave into a cold, harsh world.

e) For whom is birth a hell?
Answer: iii. for both.

a) Give two examples.
Answer: Lines 21-22: "What woman's happier life repays / Her for those months of wretched days?" and Lines 25-26: "What have I done, or tried or said / in thanks to that dear woman dead?"

b) Write down the actual meaning of each.
Answer: 1. I have not repaid my mother for those months of wretched days by making a woman's life happier. 2. I have not done or tried or said anything to express my thanks to that dear dead woman.

Answer: both (a) man's beastly sexuality and (b) man's lust for power over women.

a) How are they different?
Answer: It is a single exclamatory sentence, unlike the rest that are in stanzas and written as observations and rhetorical questions.

c) 'open'd graves' is an example of what figure of speech?
Answer: A hyperbole. It's an exaggerated statement highlighting the shame the poet is experiencing. Surely, a grave will not open and his mother will not come to life to put him to shame.

d) Why does the poet want the grave to keep shut?
Answer: If his mother were to see him now, or women were to see mankind now, she/they would be ashamed.

Answer: (c) a sense of shame.

Answer:
1st Stanza: aa bb cc
2nd Stanza: dd ee ff
3rd Stanza: gg hh ii
4th Stanza: jj kk ll
5th Stanza: mm nn oo

II. Close Study (Extracts)

a) Who do 'I' and 'she' refer to?
Answer: 'I' refers to the son, i.e., the poet, and 'she' refers to the mother.

b) What does 'it' refer to?
Answer: 'It' refers to the life that the mother has given the son.

c) Why is it that she cannot tell?
Answer: She is dead and cannot see whether he lives well or not.

a) Would it be possible for the mother and son to meet each other?
Answer: No, since the mother is dead and the son is still alive.

b) What is the figure of speech used in the expression 'soul's face'?
Answer: Personification.

c) What would his soul reveal?
Answer: (ii) his sense of ingratitude to his mother.

III. Paragraph Writing

Answer: The poet doesn't stop at his personal experience. It starts with how the mother gave her beauty to the child and lost a little with every birth. She is dead, and the poet feels guilty that he has not used her gift properly. When he thinks about how he has helped to make any woman's life better, he realizes that he has not done anything at all. There is a strong opinion about women's rights communicated in the poem. Women all over the world are still exploited, tormented and oppressed by men. A woman's role as a mother, a woman who is made powerless by a man, and a woman who has to fight for every right—men who force her into those situations and worse should be ashamed.

Answer: The poet talks about a common event in a very unusual manner. Everyone feels indebted to the mother for their birth, but the poet's intensity of feelings makes it a very poignant experience. The poet's perception of the mother's sacrifice in giving birth to children is uncommon. In return for the mother's sacrifice, the poet wants to make another woman's life better. This is a wonderful and unique thought that gives the poem its emotional depth.