Poetry Ch. 4 Imagery (4)

"Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well." Pg. 782

The poem "Those Winter Sundays" has a nostalgic tone to it. I believe that the tone is established throughout the poem because the speaker is reflecting back on a previous time in his/her life. I think that the author is longing to return to the past to thank the father who warmed the house and polished shoes even on Sundays when he was tired and ached from labor. The speaker wants to go back to this time to thank his/her father. I think the nostalgic tone is achieved with the flashback to the past and through the question at the end: "What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?" This question is the speaker calling upon his/herself to think about the past and how it made him/her feel then and now. The speaker is also a bit resentful about the way he/she treated his/her father. This is evident when the speaker mentions the way the father was treated even after he drove out the cold and polished shoes. I think that the tone may be nostalgic because the father might have recently passed away and now their is no apologizing or making up for the past now that he is gone.