Family
The title of the poem is reflective of the fact that the speaker is not emotionally close to the dead person. Instead of calling him grandfather, the speaker refers to the lost person as “my father’s father.” This verbally emphasizes the distance between the two and highlights the idea that being tied by blood does not necessarily mean that family members will grieve the loss of one another.
Death
Death is portrayed as being inevitable and absolute, though not necessarily negative. The speaker notes that the graveside where his grandfather is buried is marked with “unchanging cairn,” emphasizing the finality and irreversibility of death. Yet, the ceremony is beautiful due to the bagpipes and flowers. The grandfather recalls his childhood while on his deathbed, which allows him to face death without fear.
Aging
We see the grandfather progress through his life in this poem. On his deathbed, he recalls his childhood, which seems to have been more emotional than his later life. He remembers watching leaves fall, apparently "for a child's sake," and remembers the sea, which scared him at the time due to the lives it had taken. Then, when the grandfather grew up, he became a powerful and reserved presence with a close relationship to nature. He felt pride but never spoke it out loud. Eventually, the grandfather's body declined, but he continued to feel connected to the natural world.
Aging is portrayed as an unavoidable process that does not inherently change a person. Only introspection, such as the reflection that the grandfather performs on his deathbed, can allow one to fully understand who they are. The grandfather feels for the first time how tragic it is that he spent his entire life closed off from the people around him: "his heart had never spoken / In eighty years of days."
Nature
The beauty and power of nature are portrayed in contrast to the grandfather's reticence. This theme serves multiple purposes. First, the speaker's flowery and rhetorical descriptions of nature, such as "The pipes could set ablaze / An aaronsrod and blossom," present an alternative way of life to the grandfather's closed-off existence. This way of life fully embraces feelings and expressions of emotions. Additionally, the theme emphasizes the complex and contradictory nature of the human psyche. The grandfather is superficially closed off, but he has an intense and active inner life. This helps to characterize the grandfather and paints him in a more positive light than might be initially perceived.
