Dannie Abse Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road

From the poem we can infer that the persona has gone back to a house that he once used to live in a long time ago with his parents. It suggests in the poem that his parents have died and he is sitting in his fathers armchair in the dark, alone. We can infer from the poem that he is alone and his parents are no longer there by the line - 'not one, comforting, diminutive sound' this could mean that he no longer feels comforted in this house as their is no life in it since his parents have died. However personification is used in the second stanza to describe the objects in the room. By using personification, Abse could be suggesting that he isn't alone in this room and all the objects have a personal connection towards him.

You could link this poem to Larkin's 'Home is so Sad' because the poem talks about how the house stays the same, waiting for its owner to return and we also get the feeling that it could be about Larkin's mother who died and the home she left behind.