Those Winter Sundays

1. C. The “cracked hands that ached / from labor” suggest that the father performs manual labor, such as a farmer would. The “cold splintering, breaking” reveals the iciness of the house.

2. A. A classic Shakespearean sonnet is composed of 14 lines of iambic pentameter and follows a set rhyme scheme.

3. A. The speaker’s saying “No one ever thanked him” reveals that, with the gift of hindsight, the speaker now understands that no one in the family ever expressed gratitude for the father’s early-morning labor, and thus the speaker regrets how unappreciative he was of the father’s gesture of love. The repetition of “What did I know” also conveys regret that he was too young to understand that his father’s warming the house was an act of love.

4. B. In this context, “offices” most closely means the duties and responsibilities of love. Love is not always outwardly effusive; it can also manifest plainly and simply.