The child has always been a versatile and powerful symbol for a variety of themes; themes such as new life, innocence, potential and even loss. While in both Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "To a Friend, Who Asked How I Feel, When the Nurse First Presented My Infant to Me" and Agnes Strickland's "The Infant" the titular infants are used to convey themes of innocence and bliss, Their contrasting circumstances lead to starkly different inferences in terms of overall meaning. Coleridge deals with the acceptance of life and the realization of potential, while Strickland deals with the loss of both, leading to the possible redefinition of the symbolic entity that is the child. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Coleridge's ecstatic response to the birth of his son is evident even before reading the sonnet itself, with the poem's superfluous title and its proud, self-centered diction revealing his irrepressible joy on the occasion. By using words such as “I,” “mine,” and “me,” Coleridge reveals the personal pride and affection he feels toward his newborn son. However, early in the sonnet Coleridge also expresses his concern for his son's future considering his past, noting that "For dimly into my thoughtful spirit burst / All I had been, and all my child might be! ". By conveying this argument, Coleridge reveals the doubts and regrets he has regarding his personal history and the fact that he fears the same for his son in terms of his potential to repeat his mistakes. Yet, as the sonnet progresses, its focus shifts to the child himself, and subsequently to his mother, where Coleridge's fears are dispelled. Stating that he was "thrilled and moved", and "all charmed / by a dark memory and a foreboding fear", when he saw the beatific scene of the child "on his mother's arm, / and hanging at her breast (she meanwhile / Bent over his features with a tearful smile), it is evident that the sacred bond between mother and child reassured Coleridge in terms of the child's well-being. Further expounding on the relationship between the mother and the child, Coleridge also states that: “So for the mother's sake the child was dear, / And dearer was the mother to the child.” This observation on the dependency between the two explores the physical needs of the child and the emotional needs of the mother; a symbiotic relationship rooted in the powerful and sacred symbol that is the child. In the same way that the sentiment of Coleridge's sonnet is also evident in its title, so it is in Strickland's "The Infant", with its solemn brevity presaging the dark nature of the poem beforehand. By being so brief, Strickland distances himself emotionally from the child in question, hoping to fend off the vulnerability he faces when the child is lost. In contrast to Coleridge's healthy and promising child, the one Strickland observes is mortally ill, upon whom "had fallen the withered sore / Of pale disease." Lamenting that "grievous death was near, / And life's young wings beat for flight," Strickland creates a powerful image of the child's final struggles to stay alive, despite impending death. Furthermore, while he uses the formidable symbols of Life and Death to illustrate the child's struggle, he simultaneously makes their transition represent the theme of loss. Describing the child on his deathbed "Like a beautiful flower plucked away prematurely," Strickland uses the innocent simile of a plucked flower to contrast the bleak nature of the child's reality,.