Analysis

This brief poem is a simple two-stanza piece that begins with direct speech.

The boy is speaking, as his father walks quickly away without speaking and the boy feels like he is being left behind and ‘shall be lost’.

The second stanza describes the dark night, with no father there and the child ‘wet with dew’ which could also represent tears of sadness.

The child is left deep in the mire, or ditch, crying ‘weeping’ and without his father.

There is internal rhyme on ‘deep’ and ‘weep’ with the extended ‘ee’ sound emphasising the sadness the boy feels.

There is also an abcb rhyme in the second stanza creating a song like quality about the poem.

The line ‘away the vapour flew’ gives a sense of loss, the vapour could represent the boy’s connections with his father, his love for him.