Language: Cassidy's use of language in "Sons, Departing" is most notable in the way he chooses to have the narrator describe the setting. In the second stanza, for example, Cassidy chose to use the phrase "miles of empty air" as a more creative way to say that the sky stretched forever on the horizon. He found unique ways to make our minds picture things we see almost every day, like the "torn clouds" in the second stanza (a phrase used to describe the clouds that are drifting apart).
Structure: The structure of the poem as a whole, the stanzas, and the individual lines are what gives this poem its flow. It moves at a steady pace, mirroring the steadiness of the sons' "retreating footfalls"—yet it's not so slow that we grow tired. Because each stanza is a complete sentence, and because Cassidy makes use of enjambment (the continuation of a sentence, without a pause, from one line to the next), we're able to move with each stanza's action as it happens and pause at the end to reflect.
Themes: This poem has themes of loss, of life, of growing up. The themes are different for the narrator and the characters (father and sons, respectively). For the narrator, he's losing his boys. It's an inevitable loss that happens as his children grow older, but that doesn't mean he's ready or prepared for them to leave as he admires their journey in one direction: the future. The boys and the sea represent the theme of life, the openness and uncertainty (yet excitement) of the future.
Imagery: Cassidy's images are very strong. Instead of simply describing the waves in the second stanza as foamy or small or large, he says, "the sea its irregular / runs and spatters of white." We know what he's talking about, we can visualize it, and his phrasing evokes the image more strongly than a simple "the waves were different sizes and foamy." We see this type of language and imagery (which often go hand in hand) throughout the poem but most notably at the end.
The final line reads, "their walk was one-dimensional, and final." Cassidy chose to use "one-dimensional" and "final" to describe his sons going off on their own. He could have chosen to say "they walked in the opposite direction for good," but he worded it in a way that was easier to picture and felt more profound, as if the end of one journey and the beginning of another.
Symbols: The biggest symbol in this poem is the sea, as it can tie in to a number of things the speaker and the sons may be feeling. For the speaker, the uncertainty of the sea and the empty air could symbolize the fear and uneasiness he feels for his sons as they depart into the world. It could symbolize the broad emptiness within him, as they would have been a big part of his life and now they're seemingly disappearing.
For the sons, it could symbolize life itself. What's ahead of them is as uncertain as the waves but as open as the horizon and the sky. They can go and do and be whatever they want; it's an exciting journey.
Structure: The poem consists of five quatrains (four-line stanzas). The four lines are each comprised of a single sentence (this technique is called enjambment) spoken in the past tense and beginning with the plural pronoun "they" to observe the young men. The form is free verse, meaning there is no regular meter or rhyme scheme.
Language: Cassidy intersperses descriptions of the natural world (see below in imagery) with that of the depersonalization that results from entering the larger world. The hedges are "clipped privets" and the young men who are first described as just clearing the top of the hedges with hair "blond with sunlight" resolve, in the final stanza, to "sunlit points" as they fade into the distance.
Themes: John Cassidy's "Sons, Departing" speaks to loss and separation and the pain parents feel as their grown children leave their daily care. The speaker observes at least two young men taking leave, presumably, of their seaside home. Their destination is unknown--it could be war or the larger world generally.
Imagery: The poem relies heavily on natural imagery; examples by stanza, quoted, are:
"hedges," "sunlight," "flowers"
"sea," "air," "sky," clouds"
"privets" (hedge)
"gulls," "wind"
"sunlit," "random patterns of the sea"
The natural imagery contrasts with the "clipped privets" and the straight line of the young men's path.
Symbols: The young men head toward a distant sea that perhaps symbolizes the profundity of the separation the observer feels as the young men depart. The observation that the young men don't look back and the last line, "their walk was one-dimensional and final," deepen the pathos of the idea that an irrevocable line has been crossed.
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