Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 25-26
keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
- Remember when we were wondering if the seasons would come back? Well, it looks like they have with mention of midsummer.
- Notice that the word "sun" is used.
- In all, the words seem to bring about the idea that we're in the prime of the father's life.
- Get it? If spring = beginning of life, then summer = the prime of adulthood.
- It seems like the speaker is saying that his father's mind was really sharp, since he uses the word "keen" twice.
- There's a play on words here, too, because keening is also a word for an Irish funeral song or a wailing sound.
- So, once again the specter of death haunts the father—even at the prime of his life.
- But whatever, his father's "conceiving mind of sun" is still rocking out.
- The fierce intellectualism that we heard associated with the moon is now connected with the blazing of the sun.
Lines 27-28
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream
- When we see the word "strictly," it makes us think that the father tenaciously pursued his goals.
- The phrase "(over utmost him / so hugely)" gives us the idea that maybe the father's dreams loomed largely over him because they were so big. But despite all this, the father soldiered on.
- Also notice the weird line break here, where Cummings breaks up the words in parentheses.
- It does a cool thing with the meaning of the line because you can associate it with the rest of the phrase in the parentheses, "over utmost him," but you can also connect it with "stood my father's dream.
- Overall, it brings to our minds the image of a giant dream-thing, looming in the horizon for the father.