Harmonium

Structure

• Different Lengths
• Lack of rhyming scheme (a few half rhymes)
• Starts in the past, ends in the present

Language

• Colloquial language used, creates informal, friendly tone
• "bundled off to the skip" "sold for a song"
• Puns and lexical choices associated with music
• "still struck a chord" etc.
• Ironic humour
• Words associated with death
• "too starved of breath" "laid on it's back" "dead weight"
• Personification of the harmonium
• "the fingernails of its keys" "lost its tongue"

Imagery

• Metaphors and similies- choir
• "openened their throats and guilded finches...had streamed out"
• "had lost its tongue"
• "pedalled and pedalled" - repetition of both playing an instrument and of time passing
• Harmonium given human qualities- like a member of the church
• The speaker uses parallelism- how a son takes the place of his father as time passes
• Father ages:
• "the next box I'll shoulder through this nave"

Themes

• Love
• Aging
• Family
• Regret
• Cyclical nature of life