Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 29-30
his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
- This stanza kicks off with a little parallelism with the way the words "flesh" and "blood" are repeated similarly.
- At first we look at this line and we're like, "Well, we hope his flesh and blood were his. It would be gross if he stole somebody else's."
- But then we read on, and the speaker starts talking about "hungry men" wanting the father to have food. So, it could be that with all this flesh and blood talk, the speaker is saying that his dad was really human—you know, like he was a humane guy.
- He was so generous and good that even people who were starving wanted to make sure he got his three square meals.
Lines 31-32
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.
- The idea of how generous the father was continues through the end of the stanza.
- He was so awesome that people would crawl up a hill just to see him smile. That's pretty intense.
- Sheesh, we hope the father would help them back down the hill or something.