The poem addresses the pull between the struggle to be
involved with his family and the admission that normally the only thing that
has ever really mattered is his work. The first line can be read as a bit of
capitulation to the pressures his wife has been laying on him. It triggers his “extra
fate”: There has always just been work at the heart of his attention. Maybe not
anymore, at least for a moment, since there’s this “extra love” now in the
picture.
“He sings / & clowns” sure, but it leads to this
pronouncement: “& is wiser than the next man.” Well, who with a working
intelligence doesn’t think that about himself? We debate to prove it, and
suspend the assurance of our own wisdom only when we have to. But it’s that
willingness to suspend that assurance and let our opinions accommodate new
information and new ideas that proves the deeper wisdom. Maybe he’s even
showing a touch of it here in that he listened to Kate about the role he’s
playing in his family and marriage. But what about that amazing special gift of
his wisdom?—which we must be careful with it, sure, since it tends not to
permit humility. But just as soon as he makes this concession he turns right
around: “Unmanly slovenly love took him at times / and passed him back.” The
guy hasn’t learned a thing, is what I’m seeing.
His “manhood” is tied up in his work. If the bonds of
marriage and the tidal pull of love get him to waver, well, that happens, doesn’t
it? You have to be human sometimes whether you want to or not. But in the end
that’s “slovenly” stuff. It’s messy, you can’t count on it, and like the ghost
of the first stanza, it’s something that just hangs around on the front door
and makes its presence manifest now and then. In the end, though, love passed
him back. Sorry, Kate.
It's like a TV train wreck.
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