"Digging"

In the poem "digging", there is a melancholy tone. The narrator laments about his father who farmed and his Grandfather who dug sod for a living. He is very proud of their work, since he mentions their jobs in such detail and has nothing negative to say about them. He also expresses a fondness of the memories, with "the squelch and slap Of soggy peat"(679-25). At first, I thought that the flowers were a monument for his dead father. Now I think that his father is outside of his window shoveling flowers, and the sound reminds him of "twenty years" before(678-7). His dad was a potato farmer then, and was as good of a digger as his grandfather. His "grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner's bog"(679-17). When we learn about the two men that were great with a spade, and he says "I've no spade to follow men like them", there is a tone of regret. The narrator mentions how his pen is "snug as a gun" in his hand(678-2). This would imply that he takes the pen very seriously. He then says he will "dig with it", which would mean that he will make his living with a pen instead of a shovel.