Briefly comment on the Speaker’s mood/ attitude in vanity.
The air of despondency is manifested in the poem. The speaker is dispirited because it seems all that will be and that ought to be said will fall on deaf ears of “unworthy sons”. The ancestors seem to know much about life. Having lived and died, they have known the whole of what life is all about and can therefore advice. “If we tell all that we shall one day have to tell…Sad complaining voices, of beggars…our torments…Our clamuoring…Our pitiful anger, who indeed will hear them without laughter?
The speaker uses the traditional belief in the spirit or the ancestors as a means of reflecting upon the continuity, of human experience and suffering. The speaker is sad because no one seems to be interested in their plight as Indicated in the closing stanza of the poem:
“If we weep gently, gently
If we cry roughly of our torments,
What heart will listen to our — clamouring?
What ear to our sobbing hearts?
This is the uncertainty that prevails all through the poem.