Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road

In this poem, Abse visits the ground-floor flat in which his deceased parents once lived. He says that when he entered, he didn’t know why he “sat in the dark” or took out his surgeon’s pocket-torch (with himself being a doctor) and “hosed the objects of the living room with its freakish light”. This could be down to the fact that he is so overcome with emotion and grief of the loss of his parents that he simply doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He mentions that it isn’t a living room; more a dying room – this could indicate that for the duration of his time in the room, all he can think of is the death of his parents. However, when he shines his light over certain objects, they seem to come to life due to his use of personification.
This is shown when he describes the “awakened empty fruit bowl”, “four-legged table in a fright”, “vase that yawned hideously” and the “pattern that ran up the curtain, took flight to the long, wriggling, photophobic crack in the ceiling.” Suddenly, the entire room appears to spring up and become alive, until he returns it to darkness; he also says that the room is out of breath and listened. I think that the message Abse is trying to get across here is that a home is only truly alive when somebody is in it.

The poem has no set rhyme scheme at all and is entirely varied throughout the stanzas. The poem reminds me of Home Is So Sad, due to the link between the loss of parents, as well as the 'emptiness' of rooms.