Key theme - The main theme of this poem is regret and disappointment when looking back on the past and the missed opportunities. The general idea of the poem is that as a child Abse was forced to undertake piano lessons's by his father and therefore felt that he missed out on a large part of his childhood - just being a kid.
The poet describes the noise made by the children as "pointless cries of children" suggesting that their fun was not of importance and the main importance was music and having a clear focus. To me I get the impression that Abse went against his father and almost had a rebellious strike where he started to conform to the other children's behavior so his father became angry "That's his last piano lesson!". On the other hand it could suggest that Abse became completely non-compliant to continue because of his boredom and distaste towards the music. Because of this it suggest that in this period of his life it was not something that interested him - this is similar to the way Larkin describes his boredom of reading (ironic as he is a poet) in 'A study of reading habits'. Although Abse's reasoning for his distaste has a more concrete approach as he suggests it intervened with his childhood where as Larkin's is more generalized and worthy of a cynicism award.
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