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I'm ceded - I've stopped being Theirs
I'm ceded - I've stopped being Theirs
The name of They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I've finished threading-too
Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace-
Upto supremest name-
Called to my Full-the Crescent dropped-
Existence's whole Arc, filled up,
With this small Diadem.
My second Rank-to small the first-
Crowned-Growing-on my Father's breast-
A half unconscious Queen-
But this time-Adequate-Erect,
With Will to choose, just a Crown-
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| I'm ceded - I've stopped being Theirs |
Summary and Analysis
In this poem, the poet compares baptism and marriage while stressing the transforming effects of both rituals upon growing individuals. Baptism refers to her getting a name and giving her parents' identity. It further refers to the period of her youth, with her dolls and her spools. She gains identity from her parents and their values. As a young girl, she has 'stopped being Theirs' and begins to seek her own identity. She gets her 'supremest name' as she enters the time of her maturity. She is now associated with the images of royalty, diadem, rank, and crown, As a child, she was baptized without choice and was heard crying on her father's breast. But as a woman, she acts consciously, of Grace. And can now choose or reject her own. She is no now more governed by others. She has now realized her full potential in when she hears her true and self-given name. Her whole existence becomes full, and she is crowned. She has shifted from a low rank to the highest imaginable rank. She is now a complete person and can plan her own destiny.
The poem contrasts the two sacraments of marriage and baptism; her helpless baptism as a helpless infant in the arms of her father, where the sacrament was a mere external and unwanted, and her new, mature crowning as a woman in marriage, where the baptism was freely chosen and elevated her to queenhood. Baptism and coronation motifs are artistically interwoven and blended with suggestive hints of sexual surrender to capture a woman's exuberant happiness on the day of her marriage.