Individuality
In the poem "Prayer Before Birth", the speaker describes the various evils of the world, and asks to be protected against them. The loss of individuality is the final evil the speaker mentions, and perhaps the one the most emphasis is put on. Death, the narrator has decided, is better than being forced to live, and continually wish to be dead. Being forced to lose one's individuality and making one part of a machine makes that person not really a human, but a robot. In other words, this would be similar to "killing" somebody; their body isn't dead, but their heart and mind, in a sense, are. Therefore, it is better that everything dies at the same time than only some of a person.
Co-Existence
As demonstrated in the poem "Snow", everything has some form of variance. The roses and snow contrast each other, proving the ability of two largely contrasting objects to co-exist. Different parts of the body are named, to show how varying parts can come together, and they can make a whole. Coming back to the subject of the snow and roses, MacNeice writes at the end of the poem, "There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses". Indeed, variety exists between them, making them different and interesting. Snow demonstrates the variety of the world through various mediums.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Throughout the poem "The Sunlight On the Garden", the speaker (for the most part) starts stanzas with a picture of a beautiful memory. However, these memories are ruined by the present, when it all comes to an end. For example, in stanza 3, the speaker gives the reader a rush of exhilaration, with the feeling of soaring and defiance. At the end of the stanza though, the narrator talks about how we are all dying. Freedom, like all good, cannot stay forever; it all comes crashing down at one point or another. At the end of the poem, the narrator says how they were grateful for sunlight on the garden. Sunlight, too, always ends up leaving, for either night or thunderstorms, or something of the sort. As shown a couple of times in the poem, nothing good ever stays forever.
