A Parental Ode To My Son Aged three years and five months

  The poem starts off by saying “Thou happy elf!”. At this stage in the poem the father is in love with the child and calls him a happy elf. An elf is slightly mischievous and perhaps the father knows that the boy is as well. “Thou merry, laughing sprite!” again shows that the father is proud and delighted with his son.

 In the second stanza the father completely changes his mood and becomes cross and angry with his son. “Drat the boy! There goes my ink”. The son now maybe frustrating the father by doing little accidents such as spilling the ink.

 The father is very cross with the boy and starts letting his anger out by shouting and saying stronger language in front of the boy.

                     The poem is extremely varied from verse to verse and there becomes a pattern of hate and love. In the third stanza the father has forgiven his son for what he has done and describes him as “thou human humming bee”. The poet has used alliteration here to perhaps describe the flow of the fathers love for his child. As the pattern continues the child damages and causes more trouble. The father becomes exhausted and feels like there is no hope as he says “Thy fathers pride and hope”. He wants his child to be a success but has some disbelief. By the final stanza the father sends the child (who is still probably a toddler as he says “Go to your mother and wipe your nose”) to his mother. This shows that the father has given up his efforts to look after the child and maybe very frustrated. On the final line it says “I cannot write unless he is sent above”. This may mean he wants the child to go upstairs and go to bed or possibly in more dramatic terms die and go to heaven.

The poem follows a structure pattern of a b a b c c d d in the first two stanzas.

All through the poem the tone changes from calm and full of praise to hate and dismay. The rhythm may possibly musical and sung as a poem and it is also rather lilting.