In Llandough Hospital- Dannie Abse

Content
A son reverts back to his childhood as he sits with his sick father in hospital. He reflects that though his father's life is coming to an end, the love and memory of him will live on, evident in a moment of realisation when he holds his fathers hand.

Analysis
In the 'slow sunset' that approaches, we see the very natural descent towards death, later supported as Abse acknowledges that 'death makes victims of us all' stating its inevitability in a Larkinesque manner, yet also that this time it is prolonged pain, the 'first star pain'. Elements to the poem give it an autobiographical form, his 'pleading' suggests a heart felt desperation, perhaps synonymous with how he felt in the face of death with his own father.  The 'bright butchers hook' forms a metaphor for the stars, implying that death is written in our fate and future, the inevitable 'butchers hook' for 'man and meat'- for all. An immense pathos is created in the simile, 'thin as Auschwitz' which not only compares his fathers fragility to the starved skeletons of the death camps, yet also engages with his Jewish heritage and scale of death within the Holocaust.
Yet despite his pain and suffering, there is an underlying beauty about this father figure, an admiring appreciation from the son who 'like a child' returns to idolise his father and all he has done for him. The central image of the 'maimed bird' creates a sense of damage and immobility yet also the beautiful and delicate side that reflects the affection he felt for his father. There is a sheer admiration, the 'courage' of the man at such a frightening time, the references to Philosophers, 'Hemlock' and 'Winkle Reid' connote mental power, cognition and superiority- despite his physical frailty. All of this is tied in on the moment they 'grasp' each others hand, the rest of the poem seems to stop at the moment of powerful love as the son is surprised by the 'warmth' symbolising the love that is present. The final image of 'night without an end' is somewhat ironic, as nights do dissipate into morning, just as this poem comes to a close and the father's life inevitably ends, yet this idea that reflects the limitless, 'omnipotence' -Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road, that memories are timeless and love will remain in spite of the ending of life. This ties it back to the initial 'sunset' image, that the sun will never set- that light and guidance will never die out.

Death's inevitability is reflected in the regular quatrains lacking caesura, creating this ongoing journey towards that 'sunset', the personal touches 'my father' and direct speech in the centre very much makes gives it an elegy form yet despite its personal side, it closes on ideas we can all reflect upon.