Summary
We are now shown the grandfather as an old man approaching death. The speaker recalls that when he grew old and lost his sight, the grandfather would spend his days sitting by a fire in the kitchen. While he was unable to see with his eyes, he would form an image in his mind of the stars twinkling as if they were drunk. He would also imagine the changing of the seasons, which is described in the text as the "green / Boughs of heaven folding / The winter world in their hand." The speaker tells us that although his grandfather felt pride, he never spoke it aloud.
Next, we return to the grandfather's deathbed, where he has made the realization that he never expressed his inner feelings even in the most emotional moments of his life—not even when moved to do so by music or when he was in bed with his wife did the grandfather let his heart speak. He begins to recall the early years of his life. He remembers a childhood house on the water where he had once watched leaves fall off of trees, a fleeting moment of joy. The grandfather also remembers hearing the waves crashing all night long and thinking about how many lives the sea had claimed. He had pictured the waves then as containing "the dark mouths of the dead." Then, back in the present, the grandfather is affected by this memory of the water. He feels like the waves are speaking to him, and he is calmed by this sensation. In his last moments, "his heart was unafraid"—he dies calmly, without any trace of fear.
Analysis
Lines 18 through 26 are a direct continuation of the previous six lines, as the speaker shows us how the grandfather aged and how his connection with nature developed. Instead of performing backbreaking labor, in his old age the grandfather was confined to a chair in the kitchen. The landscape has gone from dynamic to static, a dichotomy that appears throughout the text as a way of illustrating the finality of death. (Recall the "unchanging cairn" at the funeral juxtaposed with the "pipes [that] could set ablaze / An aaronsrod and blossom.") Yet, while the grandfather's body—a dynamic feature of the poem in and of itself—has changed, his deep relationship with nature—a static feature—has not. Now, instead of working under a "lion sun," he sits by a fire in the kitchen. This symbol, the weakened fire, illustrates the grandfather's physical weakness, but the fact remains that he has kept that "lion sun" in his life.
The speaker tells us that his grandfather spends his days recalling the stars he had watched shine in the night sky before he went blind. He imagines them dancing as if they were drunk, a piece of personification that illustrates his active inner life. This particular description alongside the use of the word "sober" in line 24 may also be taken to suggest that the grandfather liked to drink alcohol, an argument that could be bolstered by a knowledge of Baxter's personal life. However, this argument lacks much textual backing. The speaker uses a metaphor to compare his grandfather's mind to a "burning-glass," demonstrating its power even as the man reaches an advanced age.
What follows is a depiction of the seasons changing, which the speaker describes as "the green / Boughs of heaven folding / The winter world in their hand." This is yet another reference to the cyclical and dynamic natural world. The use of flowery language in this scene does more than just depict the grandfather and nature in certain ways: it shows that the speaker himself holds nature in a high regard. This is important, as it helps the reader better understand why the speaker is so conflicted when it comes to his grandfather's memory. The scene is immediately followed by a short, staccato sentence: "The pride of his heart was dumb." Here, the speaker gives us a literal embodiment of how he perceives his grandfather's identity. There is nature and beauty, but there is also an uncompromising refusal to outwardly engage with such concepts. There is the stone cairn and the blazing flowers existing at the same time.
The speaker next uses repetition to emphasize his grandfather's deathbed realization. This time, however, we have been provided context about his grandfather's life, so we better understand why the speaker—and the grandfather himself—viewed the elder man's reticence as such a tragedy. We know about his connection with nature and active inner life, the "green / Boughs of heaven" that unfolded before his eyes in his old age. It is outrageous, the speaker seems to be telling us, that a man such as his grandfather never let his heart speak, not even in the most emotional moments of his life, "In song or bridal bed."
We now watch the grandfather in his final moments recalling his youth. He has a "naked" thought, a metaphor revealing his vulnerability in these last breaths. He remembers watching leaves falling off of a tree—another reference to the changing seasons. This seemed at the time to be happening for his own sake. The reader can imagine the joy the grandfather must have felt in those moments. Yet, his childhood did not consist of joy alone. He also remembers being scared by the sea's "dark mouths of the dead." What should we make of these recollections? Simply put, they bring the entire poem together by showing the reader how emotional the grandfather used to be while simultaneously showing the grandfather looking back on his life. We see through the grandfather's eyes as he realizes the errors of his ways. At some point, he diverged from the path of his youth and lost the ability to express himself.
In the grandfather's final moments, his life is shown mirroring the changing of the seasons. Just as he used to hear the waves at night, he again feels affected by the same water in a cycle akin to what occurs in the natural world. Yet, all is not the same; the grandfather has changed. Death, which used to manifest in his life as a terrifying image of "dark mouths," is no longer scary: "his heart was unafraid." In the end, nature and man are shown to have a fundamental difference. While nature is (broadly speaking) portrayed in the poem as infinite and cyclical, and man's life is linear with a fixed ending, humans are capable of growth and real change. It is this difference that makes it so tragic that the speaker's grandfather never changed in a way that mattered.
