Compare and contrast how empathy is evoked in the reader in "Follower" by Seamus Heaney and "The Farmer's Bride" by Charlotte Mew.

In terms of eliciting empathy from the reader, these two poems share multiple qualities. Perhaps the greatest is creating characters which are vulnerable. In "The Farmer's Bride," the speaker almost immediately concedes that he may have made a misjudgment and contributed to his own unhappiness. When the speaker says he married "Too young maybe—but more’s to do / At harvest-time than bide and woo," we can sense he is reasonable for admitting the potential for his own fault and was preoccupied with hard work. He was burdened and made a mistake; he was vulnerable.
The reader is similarly compelled to feel empathy for the speaker of "Follower." In Heaney's poem, the strong father character is juxtaposed to the speaker as a boy, who was "a nuisance, tripping, falling, / Yapping always." In short, he was young, clumsy, and vulnerable. By illuminating each speaker's weaknesses or faults, both "Follower" and "The Farmer's Bride" provoke empathy from readers.
However, even though both these poems attempt to paint sympathetic characters, the situations of each poem are fundamentally different. "The Farmer's Bride" is, quite simply, about an unhappy marriage and a sad situation. We feel pity for both husband and wife as the speaker says, "When us was wed she turned afraid / Of love and me and all things human."
"Follower," on the other hand, portrays a meaningful and healthy bond between father and son, only to abruptly introduce a devastating role change. As the speaker's father has aged, so the speaker has had to become the leader of the two. It is obvious that seeing his father's strength diminished has brought great sadness to both parties. One poem paints a sad portrait, and the other portrays a downfall from happiness to despair.