Cecil Rajendra. A grandfather dies, the adults wail — and the child who loved him most says nothing at all.
An old man's greatest joy is his grandson. Their friendship crosses eight decades and three generations. When the grandfather dies early one Sunday morning, the adults grieve loudly. The little boy does not cry — he simply waves goodbye, and is sad that his grandfather cannot wave back.
This poem does not run one metaphor the way the others do. Its engine is a contrast between two kinds of grief, and the whole poem is built to make you judge which is real.
“others trumpeted their / grief in loud sobs / and lachrymose blubber” — noisy, public, performed.
“He never shed a tear / just waved one of his / Small inimitable goodbyes” — silent, private, ordinary.
The word choices are doing the argument for you. “Trumpeted” is a brass instrument — grief announced as loudly as possible, for an audience. “Lachrymose blubber” is deliberately ugly and over-long; “blubber” especially is a childish, unflattering word for crying. Rajendra makes the adults sound faintly ridiculous.
Set against that, the boy's response is tiny — one wave. But it is the response of someone who actually knew him.
and while the rest had little to say to the old man the little fellow was a fountain of endless chatter
Cecil Rajendra, ‘Leave-Taking’ — extract quoted for analysis“A fountain of endless chatter” is a metaphor, and it matters for the ending. A fountain is continuous, natural, alive. The boy gave the old man constant company while “the rest had little to say to him”.
So the adults who now weep loudest are the same people who had nothing to say to him while he was alive. Rajendra never states that criticism — he lets the arrangement of the poem make it. That is worth pointing out in an answer.
And was sad the old man could not return his gesture.
Cecil Rajendra, ‘Leave-Taking’ — extract quoted for analysisThe last two lines are the turn, and they work because of what the child does not understand. He is not sad that his grandfather is dead — he is sad that the wave was not returned.
That is a child's grasp of death: not an ending, but a friend who has stopped answering. It is quieter than any of the wailing, and far more moving, because the reader understands what the boy does not.
Personification of death: “When death rattled / the gate at five” makes death a visitor arriving at the house — casual, almost neighbourly, which makes it more unsettling than a dramatic image would be.
The title: “Leave-Taking” is a formal phrase for saying goodbye. But the only real leave-taking in the poem is a small wave from a child.