Edward Thomas Old Man

1. Title: Old Man reflects one of the key ideas in this poem: the potency, yet elusiveness, of memory (also covered in other poems by Thomas, such as Tears and Words) The opening verse explores the two different names for a plant. As in Words, here the narrator explores both what the names represent and why they are, and are not, significant. Thomas uses chiasmus to suggest the interchangeability of the two. He also suggests that a name without meaning/connotations/significance (as in Words) is ‘nothing’ This factual section, as if written for a botanical textbook, exemplifies this idea: Old Man is all these things, but the memories it evokes later are more powerful and significant to the narrator Edward Thomas Old Man Old Man, or Lads-Love, - in the name there’s nothingTo one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man, The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree, Growing with rosemary and lavender.Even to one that knows it well, the namesHalf decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At least, what that is clings not to the namesIn spite of time. And yet I like the names. A paradox here: even if one knows the plant well, the name, which should elucidate its properties, both embellishes and confuses. The names could be seen to characterise the plant but they can perplex because they do not tell the whole story (i.e. explain all the feelings/ideas associated with them). Here, Thomas explores the confusing power of memory, with the powerful verb ‘clings’ to emphasise this. Nonetheless, the narrator likes the names, possibly because they are the words he knows from his youth – and, by extension, from the time before war. Such memories are, by their very nature, precious (see this idea in Words too)

2. This paradox – one of many in Thomas’s poetry – reiterates the idea that one may not like a certain object but may love it for the memories/associations it holds The timelessness of memory is explored here, as a future child will also find comfort in the herb due to its associations with her childhood Here, the same girl acts almost aimlessly (Thinking perhaps of nothing) but the smell seems to trigger a thought which compels action (runs off) – in a similar way to the narrator The herb itself I like not, but for certainI love it, as someday the child will love itWho plucks a feather from the door-side bushWhenever she goes in or out of the house.Often she waits there, snipping the tips and shrivellingThe shreds at last on to the path, Thinking perhaps of nothing, till she sniffsHer fingers and runs off. The bush is stillBut half as tall as she, though it is not old; So well she clips it. Not a word she says; And I can only wonder how much hereafterShe will remember, with that bitter scent, Of garden rows, and ancient damson treesTopping a hedge, a bent path to a doorA low thick bush beside the door, and meForbidding her to pick. Here we discover that this girl is the narrator’s daughter (or close relation). He reflects on whether she too will remember – or struggle to remember, as we discover in the final section of the poem – when she sees the herb in the future. Memory is embodied in the ‘ancient damson trees’ and ‘hedge’, natural objects which take time to mature. Why the narrator forbids her to pick is unclear – could it be that he wishes the bush to stay as it is in an attempt to preserve the memory that nonetheless eludes him? The circularity of time and memory is imaged in the father/daughter (?) relationship and the mirroring of her actions which follow in the next section

3. This section reminds the reader of the transience of memory (but also its preciousness – as the speaker strives to remember whatever eludes him) The narrator mirrors the actions of the girl, as if hoping that this simple action might aid his memory As before, the speaker does not like the scent or the herb, but he loves it beyond measure, as its scent holds a memory which is elusive yet precious beyond measure. It is all the more poignant as the speaker may literally be an old man, and his memory is fading as his life ebbs away As for myself, Where first I met the bitter scent is lost.I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds, Sniff them and think and sniff again and tryOnce more to think what it is I am remembering, Always in vain. I cannot like the scent, Yet I would rather give up others more sweet, With no meaning, than this bitter one. I have mislaid the key. I sniff the sprayAnd think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing; Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in waitFor what I should, yet never can, remember; No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bushOf Lad’s-love, or Old Man, no child beside, Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate; Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end. The speaker’s loss of the key may fit with the reading of the speaker as an old man whose absent-minded actions mirror his loss of memory The longed-for memory seems to have disappeared However, the narrator cannot let the memory go as he waits for it – there is powerful sense of wanting the impossible, emphasised by the repeated negation of ‘no’ This sad closing image can be read as the pathway to death – the memories have faded, the avenue is dark and unknown – without a name, it can have no memories attached to it (unlike Old Man, or Lad’s Love). The terrible irony here, of course, is that Thomas himself would not live to see old age, being killed in 1917, aged 39