"What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices?" (lines 13-14)
My initial reaction to this poem was that it was an ode to the speaker's father that transitioned to a description of the speaker's disdain for his father. I thought it became disdainful because of phrases like "Speaking indifferently to him? (line 10). To me, this speaker was an ungrateful brat, and despite the fact that "No one ever thanked [his father]" (line 5), this selfish little snob was not going to even give formal credit to his hard-working father. However, after my second and third time reading this poem, I realized I was completely off-base. This kid isn't a brat after all! It is an ode to his father! What the author is trying to impress upon his reader is easy to relate to because we have all been ungrateful. We have all known the awful feeling of regretting our silence when we should have been thanking someone. The speaker had a father who did everything from "make banked fires blaze" to "polish[ing] [his] good shoes." He was, it seems, a wonder-Dad who never got enough recognition, so this is the speaker's heartfelt attempt at true thankfulness.
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