Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 21-22
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
- Man, the father is still singing. We're cool with it, though, because it sounds like this song is pretty amazing. For one, it's full of joy.
- How do we know? Because Cummings uses a little repetition and says it twice.
- We're also told that it's so joyful and bright that even somebody whose heart was already a star could see where they were going at night by the light of the father's song.
- This image is drawing on the days when sailors used the stars to get where they were going.
- Notice how we went from talking about the moon in the last stanza to talking about the stars here. It looks like we're going higher and higher, along with the speaker's father.
Lines 23-24
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice
- We hear more about how awesome the song is. Once again we're told it's pure, which we interpret to mean that the speaker's father had nothing but good intentions.
- The repetition of the word "now" hammers home the idea of the father really living in the moment and helping others to do the same.
- The phrase "wrists of twilight" makes us think of bands of stars running across the sky, which continues the star imagery of the stanza.
- The father is so awesome that even the stars are celebrating him. Go, Dad.