Analysis of the Breadman

Analysis of the Ballad of the Breadman by Charles Causley

Ballad of the Breadman

Mary stood in the kitchen

Baking a loaf of bread.

An angel flew in the window

‘We’ve a job for you,’ he said.

‘God in his big gold heaven

Sitting in his big blue chair,

Wanted a mother for his little son.

Suddenly saw you there.’

Mary shook and trembled,

‘It isn’t true what you say.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said the angel.

‘The baby’s on its way.’

Joseph was in the workshop

Planing a piece of wood.

‘The old man’s past it,’ the neighbours said.

‘That girl’s been up to no good.’

‘And who was that elegant fellow,’

They said, ‘in the shiny gear?’

The things they said about Gabriel

Were hardly fit to hear.

Mary never answered,

Mary never replied.

She kept the information,

Like the baby, safe inside.

It was the election winter.

They went to vote in the town.

When Mary found her time had come

The hotels let her down.

The baby was born in an annexe

Next to the local pub.

At midnight, a delegation

Turned up from the Farmers’ Club.

They talked about an explosion

That made a hole in the sky,

Said they’d been sent to the Lamb and Flag

To see God come down from on high.

A few days later a bishop

And a five-star general were seen

With the head of an African country

In a bullet-proof limousine.

‘We’ve come,’ they said ‘with tokens

For the little boy tochoose.’

Told the tale about war and peace

In the television news.

After them came the soldiers

With rifle and bombs and gun,

Looking for enemies of the state.

The family had packed up and gone.

When they got back to the village

The neighbours said, to a man,

‘That boy will never be one of us,

Though he does what he blessed well can.’

He went round to all the people

A paper crown on his head.

Here is some bread from my father.

Take, eat, he said.

Nobody seemed very hungry.

Nobody seemed to care.

Nobody saw the god in himself

Quietly standing there.

He finished up...