" This personifies the old cottage as a very old living thing, capable of slow, lurching movement and needing shelter from the elements. .
In the next stanza there is a superb example of imagery in the last two lines. "Seventy years of stories he clutches round his bones. Seventy summers are hived in him like old honey." The first line alludes to his experience in the years of stories and his reliance on them now he is old and infirm. The reader knows that around our bones we have flesh, and draw a parallel between the years of stories and the flesh of old Dan. The last line of the stanza makes reference to the seventy years of experience and uses the positive connotations of the words "hived like old honey" to influence the reader into looking upon these seventy years in a good perspective, as if they were something to be treasured and cherished. The rest of the poem continues on in the same vein, although stanzas three and four reduce their use of such devices as they purport to be "old Dan" speaking and as such have an air of believability about them and can be used to directly form meaning.
The two "voices" in the poem, those of old Dan and the poet, greatly differ in their expression although both continue on the same concept. The poet's voice expresses more abstract, intangible themes of a link with the land, while old Dan simply tells his story in a form verging on prose. As such, old Dan's voice does not need any devices to embellish his story, since it is so unusual as to be believable. The poet resolves the difficulty of communicating her abstract ideas by making frequent use of figurative imagery, especially emotive imagery. Possibly the most emotive image in the poem is the reference to "part of my blood's country." In the context of Australia, a relatively very young nation where some people can still trace back their entire family tree to convict origins, your blood origins are a very important part of your existence, as they are in most cultures.
