Summary
In the last two stanzas, the speaker focuses on himself. He recounts his father's unhappiness about his birth and quotes his unkind comments. In the final section, he says that sorrow was the only midwife his parents could afford.
Analysis
In the final section of the poem, the speaker moves away from comparisons and describes only himself. The fourth stanza begins with the speaker's father expressing bad feelings about the day he was born: "For I was born on Saturday— / "Bad time for planting a seed," / Was all my father had to say." As the poem's title references, it was considered bad luck for a child to be born on a Saturday. However, it is the last line of the stanza that is the harshest: "And, 'One mouth more to feed.'” In comparison to all of the fanfare the other children received, the speaker is showing that his family only saw him as a burden. These comments also reveal the way in which the speaker's household was likely without much love or affection. His father appears primarily focused on immediate material concerns, so much so that he cannot spare a kind word for his son.
The final stanza is more abstract than the previous one. The speaker remarks: "Death cut the strings that gave me life, / And handed me to Sorrow," seeming to imply that his mother died in childbirth, although this is not made explicit. The speaker personifies the concepts of death and sorrow, suggesting that they have followed him from the moment he was born. The next line continues similarly: "The only kind of middle wife / My folks could beg or borrow." The speaker is commenting on their poverty, as well as the fact that sorrow was the only other thing present at the scene of his birth. This fits with the earlier lines about pain and poverty being his godparents.
The poem works to show how profoundly circumstances shape a child's life. As the title suggests, it highlights the way in which children are born into a situation that is outside their control. Cullen takes particular care to note the way in which race factors into this, showing how the speaker was born into oppression, denying him the comfort and luxury of the affluent, white children depicted elsewhere in the poem.
