In both the poems ‘Eden Rock’ and ‘Walking Away’ there is an idea of separation, there is a lot of different types of separation, some are: growing u, passing away, letting something go, etc. In this writing, I will explore the different types of separation within the two poems. 

In the poem ‘Walking Away’, written by Cecil Day-Lewis, it is written in the perspective of the father as he watches his son grow up and go off to college. The poem ‘Walking Away’ could be seen as physically growing up as the young man in the poem is starting to ‘drift’ away from his father, as he has grown up and is now off to college. The word ‘drift’ has great significance within this poem because to ‘drift’, you slowly move away from something and in this poem, the young man slowly grows up and moves away from his father. Similarly, in the poem, ‘Eden Rock’, written by Charles Causley, which is written in the perspective of the young boy, the stream slowly moves along, which is symbolic because the stream represents the fear of the young boy, this is significant because the young boy is already afraid of crossing the river, but what makes him even more afraid is the fact that if he falls in the stream, he will drift away from his parents, which frightens him. Also in the poem, Charles Causley presents the moments of separation as traumatic for a child. The parents call to him ‘over the drifted stream’ to join them on the other side, the significance of the writer using the verb, ‘drifted’, shows the danger for the child as he is on the other side of the stream.

In the poem ‘Eden Rock’,  Charles Causley shows one main moment of separation throughout the whole poem. In the poem, he  says that the young mans parents ‘are waiting’ for him in a different location. This shows the reader that the little boys parents have a good amount of trust for their young son, even though he is of a young age. Charles  is using a verb to show that this is a sad moment as the son realises that his parents are ‘waiting’, but are not in any rush to find him and include him in the family activities. The situation is similar to the idea of letting go of loved ones, as it shows that the child has grown up to be more independent and doesn’t need to rely on his parents as much as he did before. On the other hand, in ‘Walking away’, Cecil Day-Lewis shows a variety of different moments of separation. For example, Cecil speaks about memory of  his son ‘walking away’ from him and him looking for his son ‘behind the scatter of boys’. He uses a verb to show that his child was not forced to  leave him, which shows that his son has grown up and become much more independent. Also, Cecil uses preposition to show that his son has made a group of new friends and that they have started to act as a wall between father and his child. The father has to accept the change in their relationship as making new friends, is something which is out of his control. This relates to the idea of separation as his son is not as interested in spending time with his father, due to the sudden change in his lifestyle.