I find that the shorter poems are the most difficult to analyze. They are like riddles pointing and mocking at a person's face. Here Pretty Baby Lies by Robert Herrick was so nerving I had to recite the poem over and over.The other poem I found more enjoyable and less difficult to analyze is Schoolville by Billy Collins. Upon reading the poem, my brain wasn't running a marathon unlike Here Pretty Baby Lies. What I like about Schoolville is the scenery that Billy Collins constructs. " I can see it nestled in a paper landscape, chalk dust flurrying down in winter, nights dark as a blackboard" (642). The character, a teacher, is reflecting back in time when they ( the teacher) taught. I also got the idea that the scenery is described so well that the teacher knows their environment so well, it seems very redundant the routine life they live, particularly when teaching the students. On stanza four, the character describes
"I forgot their last names first
and their first names in alphabetical order
But the boy who always had his hand up
is an alderman and owns the haberdashery
The girl who signs their papers in lipstick
leans against the drugstore smoking"
     A teacher's life is very routine that they experience that one student who performed well in class or chose not to. The teacher compares their attitude with grades "The A's strolls along with the other A's. The D's honk with the other D's" (643) as if those will perform as such for the rest of their lives. Perhaps that is the reason why "the population ages, but never graduates" (642). Overall, we humans never grow up and to think, we all experience the same struggle. No matter  what great knowledge we posses of , we continue to learn even when "a term paper is fifteen years late" (643) while time passes by as "vines twirl around a porch swing" (643).

As for Here A Pretty Baby Lies, I had a really hard time what the poem is about.  A baby is sung lullabies to sleep silently as "Th' easy earth covers her" (645). When I first read it, I said out loud "What in the six hells is that suppose to mean?!" So I read it again, and numerous times when I decided perhaps this poem reflects death? We are born, we live, and we die. Then I thought, is mother earth protecting the innocent from bad souls? Nope. The textbook suggests a baby is buried in a coffin. Ok, there's a good idea; But I'm never convinced, or even agree the book has to say...sometimes. I may be hard-headed, but there are different opinions and ideas about this poem. My closest idea is the baby is dead and buried for mother nature to take care of from the horrors occurring out on the surface. Another idea is the lullabies are songs for the dead and keep the dead "silent" for not them to "stir" if anything bad should happen. Call this the silliest post, but when I thought if the dead "stir" and wasn't "silent", I immediately thought of this (picture below).

So I'm at a lost for Here a Pretty Baby lies. However, there is one aspect about the poem that wasn't too hard to interpret: the subject matter is death. Why death is significant in the poem I'll return, even it takes me "fifteen years" (643).