Symbol Analysis
This is the big payoff for the whole poem. The idea is that you can almost be born again by having a baby. When you look at your child, you see yourself, only young and healthy and beautiful again. Whether or not this is really true, it's the carrot that the speaker is holding out to try to get the young man to do what he wants.
- Line 13: When he says "this were to be new made," the speaker is promising a kind of resurrection for the young man. When he is old, looking at his young son will take him back to the days of his youth and beauty.
- Line 14: To underline this theme, the speaker adds an image of the warm blood of the young man contrasting with the cold blood of his father (line 14). This emphasizes the fact that the father and son are made of the same stuff – they share the same blood.