The three poems

After reading the tree poems, it is apparent that the underling theme is the comfort of children who are growing up around a less than ideal environment. Blake's poem is the most upfront about the conditions that these children endure. They are forced to work cleaning chimneys, a dirty and in enviable task. But ironically his poem also seems to be the most optimistic. Young Tom Dacre's hair loss is turned around and used as a motivator for him to persevere. "For when your head's bare, you know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair" (Blake 441).

Kees's poem is the exact opposite. The setting is only implied, being "in certain war"(Kees 428), but the "daughter" in question has not managed to persevere. Most of the poem describes the daughter as a corpse, a victim of her environment "the slim legs green" (Kees, 428). But the last line indicates that the "daughter" is a figment of the narrator's imagination, maybe a premonition of how the setting would affect her, and thus she desires none (Kees, 428)

Even though it is far more vague, Hughes poem could be seen as the middle ground between the other two. It makes no illusions about life being easy. At the beginning and at the end, the same line is repeated "life for me ain't been no crystal stair" (Hughes 695-696). But the poem makes a point that the mother has moved forward despite the harshness of her life, and is now telling her son "Don't you fall now. For I'se still goin, honey."

Though it is a middle ground, Hughes poem is closer in tone to Blake's poem than Kees's. Furniture and house based locations are referenced in both works to stress the poor setting. Both poems end with an ascent, perhaps to heaven. Blake's writing is more blunt about its religious elements "Then naked and white, they rise upon the clouds, and sport in the wind" (Blake, 441), but the message is the same.

The funny thing is, all three poems seem to indicate that only in death will one reap the benefits of a good or bad living. Maybe I'm wrong about that?