Study (symbol)
The study is a serious and masculine place that the children are not always allowed to enter. It symbolizes their father, who is also serious and carries out the traditionally masculine job of intellectual work. He is removed from his children in the same way the study is; that is why the children get their “hour”.
Fairy Tales (motif)
Many elements of the poem recall us to the world of fairy tales: dim lighting, ambiguous temporality, castles, towers, dungeons. This serves to create a fantastical, playful mood through which we can glimpse the affection that is present between the father and his daughters. It also indicates the father’s subtle yearning to suspend time and cherish the present.
Time (motif)
The speaker frequently refers to markers of time, even delineating a unit of time in the title of the poem itself. He focuses on the hour of the day—“Between the dark and the daylight, / When the night is beginning to lower,”—and speaks of keeping his daughters forever in his heart. Time is also configured as mutable, hazy; this allows him to focus on the emotional nature of being a father.
