ELEGY FOR MY FATHER’S FATHER

The Poem
He knew in the hour he died
That his heart has never spoken
In eighty years of days.
O for the tall tower broken
Memorial is denied:
And the unchanging cairn
The pipes could set ablaze
An aaronsrod and blossom.
They stood by the graveside
From his bitter veins born
And mourned him in their fashion.
A chain of sods in a day
He could slice and build
High as the head of a man
And a flowering cherry tree
On his walking shoulder held
Under the lion sun.
When he was old and blind
He sat in a curved chair
All day by the kitchen fire.
Many hours he had seen
The stars in their drunken dancing
Through the burning-glass of his mind
And sober knew the green
Boughs of heaven folding
The winter world in their hand.
The pride of his heart was dumb.
He knew in the hour he died
That his heart had never spoken
In song or bridal bed.
And the naked thought fell back
To a house by the waterside
and leaves the wind had shaken
Then for a child’s sake:
To waves all night awake
With the dark mouths of the dead.
The tongues of water spoke
And his heart was unafraid.
Overview
This poem pays tribute to a grandfather who was never really loved, but was still
respected. In youth he was a man capable of many feats of physical strength, but his
emotional weakness and inability to open up to those around him leaves him lonely and
filled with regret as he approaches his end.

Despite this sense of regret, he faces death without fear as there are some hints that he
has found some meaning and fulfilment in life through his experience and appreciation of
the natural world.

Mini-Glossary
cairn –a pile of stones used as a monument;
aaronsrod – plants with a tall stem leading to a flower, typically weeds;
chain of sods – a pile of turf.
Cairn - a pile of stones used as a monument.

Analysis
Context
Our second poem and our second Kiwi. Baxter led a typical poet’s existence, in that he
got up to all sorts of interesting and incomprehensible things in his life.

He began writing poetry at the tender age of seven and published his first collection as he
went off to university at seventeen. During his studies he became an alcoholic and
dropped out before finishing. A few years later, he found faith and a wife, before losing
both (due to converting from Anglicanism to Catholicism). Next he had an extended trip
around India, before returning to New Zealand as a writer/postman. A brief stint lecturing
for a university was followed by the decision (based on a dream) to give up everything,
except for his bible, and head out to a small Maori settlement called Jerusalem. The move
wasn’t good for his health and just three years later he would pop his clogs.

Throughout this rollercoaster of a life, Baxter was prolific with his poetry and in his lifetime
35 different collections were published, with more posthumously.

There isn’t too much I can dig up that has direct relevance to this poem, but his family
origins might hold some clues. His grandfather (father’s father – John Baxter) was a Scot
who emigrated to New Zealand in 1861. Whether he is the inspiration for this poem is
unclear, but there are some details that suggest the emotional distance between him and
his children may not have been as dramatic as this poem would make out.

Baxter’s father became a fairly prominent conscientious objector during the First World
War. He married Millicent Brown, from a very prominent New Zealand family, to some
uproar from her family due to the disparity in their levels of education, as Brown held
multiple degrees and was widely travelled, while Baxter’s father had left school at 12. They
got together as she was inspired by his letters he’d written to his parents about his
treatment as a conscientious objector who had been sent to the war regardless.

If his father wrote to his grandfather about his experiences that would suggest some
emotional connection. The poem, however, seems to suggest the deceased was a difficult
person to get on with and never really open with his family.

Themes
The major theme here is family, love and relationships explored through the
grandfather’s inability to really make the most of them and his sense of regret that stems
from this. However, this is contrasted with nature, which is the backdrop for his salvation.
 Content
We begin at the side of the poetic voice’s grandfather’s grave, contemplating the kind of
life he led.
Although the title is presented from the grandchild’s perspective, it makes judgements as
to how the deceased must have felt about his life and in particular his end and we are
seeing the grandfather’s life through his own eyes (as imagined by the poetic voice). The
first three lines signal a sense of regret about the fact that he was never emotionally open
nor did he love or be loved.
This emotional weakness and inability to follow his heart or demonstrate his feelings is
shown as being something that was always hidden behind the fact that he was a physically
strong and impressive man of nature. Despite his evident impressively manliness, he dies
without any great memorial or fan fare as he does not have any strong emotional bonds
with any of his family.Although his family are at his grave they are presented as being
there through duty rather than through grief.
A flashback to his youth again demonstrates his physical feats, but is quickly contrasting
with the frailty of his last years. Here is presented as being incapable, partially crippled or
disabled and all on his own. There is a suggestion that he drank heavily as he
contemplated his life, nature and his coming demise. Baxter repeats the opening lines
again demonstrating this strong sense of regret further by revealing that it is pride
preventing him from finally opening up, he cannot bring himself to reveal his true feelings
as it would give a lie to the life he led.
As he approaches his final hours, he contemplates his life in relation to the only thing that
he has ever really been connected with: nature. An image of his youth by a river and with
the wind blowing is connected with the current sound of waves, seen as the voices of
ghosts beckoning him to his end. Despite the regret revealed in the poem, there is a sense
that this connection with the natural world is enough for him and he welcomes death
without fear.

Language and Techniques

There is loads going on in this poem and I think it is likely that many of you will reach the
end and be scratching your head as to why he does not seem to fear his demise: we will
get to that!

The title is interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, an elegy is usually reserved for
someone who we have a high level of respect for and is delivered as a type of mourning
upon their death. However, this suggested respect is undermined by the fact the deceased
is referred to as ‘My Fathers Father’ as opposed to Grandad or Grandpa or equivalent. By
referring to him in these terms Baxter suggests that they did not have a relationship and
the poetic voice really does not know the deceased at all. This can be seen to born out in
the poem through the deceased’s inability to open up emotionally.

Another reason it is interesting is that it suggests the poem will be told from the grandson’s
perspective. However, it actually provides us with the grandfather’s perspective, as
imagined by the grandson. Confusing!

Our opening three lines are very powerful and really communicate a deep sense of regret.
The fact the deceased’s ‘heart had never spoken’ tells us that his feelings have been
oppressed and he has never really been able to tell people how he feels or open himself
up emotionally. He has not opened up at any stage in his long life, which is emphasised
with the phrase ‘eighty years of days’, which really draws attention to how long a period
of time this actually is as in our heads we do a quick bit of mathematics and work out is
something like 20,000 days of keeping your feeling squashed down. This is sad enough,
but Baxter adds a sharp sense of regret in the first line as the deceased is clearly
contemplating this lack of emotion as ‘he knew [about it] in the hour he died’ and thus
demonstrates he has spent time dwelling on this point.

The poem paints the grandfather as a physically strong outdoorsman or farmer, capable
of impressive feats such as carrying a tree ‘on his walking shoulder’ and moving more
‘sods’ or turf than others. However, for all his youthful strength and prowess, this fades
with age and it is his inability to feel, or communicate his feelings, that remains and leaves
him very little in life. ‘Memorial is denied’ suggests that for all his achievements there is
no one to celebrate them or who will remember them. Although he was a ‘tall tower’ of a
man in his life, he is now ‘broken’ and thus there is no longer anything left to celebrate of
him. All that is left is a pile of stones as a monument, but as this is described as
an ‘unchanging cairn’ that is ‘set ablaze an aaronsrod’ it is clear that it is not tended to and
is left to be consumed with weeds.

We see this as his family at his graveside are described as being of his ‘bitter veins’ and
only ‘mourn… in their fashion’. There is an implication that this bitterness runs both ways,
perceived through the deceased’s lack of emotional openness and from his children as a
result of not feeling that their father ever loved them. If you do something in a fashion, it
suggests you don’t do it properly or fully and therefore the mourning at the graveside was
clearly not overly powerful.
Immediately after the lines describing the deceased in his prime, Baxter presents an image
of him in old age as he awaits death. ‘Old and blind’ paints him as now being incapable
and is furthered by the fact he is sitting ‘all day by the kitchen fire’. He can no longer carry
trees and slice turf, in fact he can no longer walk or be active in any way and is evidently
frail and in decline as he seeks constant warmth from the fire. However, the most
depressing element of this is that he is alone, all day and every day, which no doubt gives
him ample time to stew on his regrets. There is a further clue as to his depressed and
miserable state as Baxter hints at alcoholism as he sees stars ‘drunken dancing’ and his
mind is a ‘burning-glass’, as if he is contemplating life and nature whilst drinking heavily
and perhaps the alcohol leads him to his deepest regrets.

In this state he also knows he is dying as he recognises ‘the winter world’ ‘folding’ his life
away. His prime is pictured as ‘the green boughs of heaven’, but he summer is long gone
and Baxter uses the seasons to reflect on the stages of life. Despite this realisation and
his contemplation of regrets, ‘pride of heart’ prevents him from admitting he has lived life
in the wrong way and opening up to his family. Instead he dies as he lived, with his feelings
bottled up and hidden from those closest to him. Baxter repeats the opening two lines to
reinforce the deep feeling of regret, further adding that he never opened up ‘in song or
bridal bed’, which shows that he was not even able to open up in times of great celebration
or even on his wedding day and with the woman who he should have been able to share
anything.

Reaching this stage of the poem you could be forgiven for thinking that the message is
basically that grandad should have opened up and has led a life of no worth or regard.
However, the last eight lines make the reader reconsider his life. In this final reflection the
deceased sees his childhood through a pastoral image of a childhood home by the water
with a gentle wind blowing the leaves. His mind returns to the present and another natural
image with the sounds of ‘waves all night awake’ having reminded him of the still of his
childhood, but also representing the ‘dark mouths of the dead’ whispering to him that it is
time to join them. In both these images and the way they are reflected upon, we see that
the deceased was at peace with nature and found joy in it.

Revisiting the rest of the poem, we see that he is at peace and in his element only around
nature. Although he is denied a memorial in the world of humankind, the fact that his grave
is ‘set ablaze by aaronsrod and blossom’ almost suggests that the natural world is
celebrating the man. Baxter could be using ‘aaronsrod’ symbolically here as Aaron’s rod
in the Bible is the tool that Moses uses to guide his flock and is a powerful symbol of
shepherding. We also see the deceased’s time as a farmer/outdoorsman framed with
beautiful imagery with the ‘flowering cherry tree’ on his shoulder and ‘the lion sun’ shining
overhead. In addition, his life is contemplated in natural terms with his prime ‘the green
boughs of heaven’ giving way to the ‘winter world’ of old age.

This connection and appreciation of the natural world is seen as having given the
deceased some joy. As he faces death, in the final line, ‘his heart was unafraid’, which
suggests that despite his regrets he feels like his life has had some meaning and merit
and been enjoyed in his own way.

In a way the ending of this poem connects again with the title. Where we initially saw a
contradiction in the respect of the term ‘elegy’ and the emotional distance of ‘father’s
father’, it now makes some sense. Although Baxter or his poetic voice may never have
really known this man, there is a sense of respect for someone who has lived their own
life and found their own worth. I also get the impression that this may be a grappling with
finding the meaning in someone’s life who has lived it in a way different to how most people
appreciate it. The grandson does not want to consider his grandfather to have lived an
empty life or to think he died full of regret and feeling he had lived life the wrong way.

Structure
I’m going to be brief here and comment on two things.

The poem is presented as a continuous stanza without a regular rhyme. It is dominated

by enjambment as ideas and imagery is presented in an almost matter of fact manner.
This structure mirrors the ‘tall tower’ of the deceased and the unchanging ways. The lack
of rhyme or break and change suggest a disconnect with emotion and the floweriness of
poetry and instead present the image of the deceased.

However, there is one jarring line that breaks the pattern of lines running on: ‘The pride
of his heart was dumb.’ While this is still very matter of fact in its assertion, it is the only
line in the entire poem that is stand alone and the idea begins and ends in the same line.
It is the heart of the poem, it forces the reader to contemplate the dangers of pride and
being too afraid to admit to our mistakes and demonstrates the regret not only of the
deceased, but also the family who were never allowed in emotionally because of the
stubbornness of pride.
 Tone
Read the poem a couple of times (if you haven’t already). At first I felt the poem was
quite cold and harsh, and it definitely is at points. However, within this lament at a man
not able to demonstrate his emotions is a mark of respect and a feeling that although the
poetic voice cannot understand it, the deceased found some value in the world without
emotional openness.