Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road

I believe that this poem is about the persona travelling back to his mother and fathers' house after they have passed away to sort things out before selling the house. One of the key themes of this poem is relationships which can be shown by the love he has for his mother and father. This links in with another Dannie Abse poem called 'A Winter Visit'.

One thing that I found interesting about this poem was the focus on concrete nouns rather than abstract nouns. This can be seen in "my father's armchair", "empty fruit bowl; the four legged table" and "the pattern that ran up the curtain". This suggests that the persona is remembering the objects that made his parent's home theirs and that now that they have gone this is the only thing he has to remember them by. Dannie Abse has also used personification when describing one of the objects. This can be seen in "the vase that yawned hideously". I believe that this also suggests that the persona is now placing his memories from his parents into the objects that belonged to them.

Another thing that I found interesting about the structure of this poem was that there is no rhyme scheme within the poem. This could suggest that the persona is now incomplete as he does not have the love from his mother and father any more. 

'Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road' also links in with 'Home Is So Sad' as both Larkin and Abse capture the moment of going back to your old home after losing a loved one. However, whilst Abse focuses more on the concrete nouns that made his parents home their own, Larkin chooses to focus on the abstract nouns that show the love that has been removed from the house.