How does the poetic form of the poem Aunt Julia, by Norman MacCaig, present the idea of a happy home?

The free verse form of ‘Aunt Julia’ presents the idea of a happy childhood home through irregularly-sized stanzas and a relaxed rhyme scheme. The rhythm of the poem comes predominantly through alliteration and assonance, for example ‘she was winds pouring wetly.’ This irregularity creates a changing pace which represents the idea that the descriptions in the poem are actually the thoughts of the narrator. For example, as he remembers the comforting, happy memories where he ‘lay at night in the absolute darkness of the box bed’ the pace slows to reflect his relaxed thoughts on the subject, and that the home is calming to him. Yet later in the poem when he discusses that ‘she was buckets and water flouncing into them’, the pace quickens significantly to show his excitement at this lively image of his Aunt. This could also demonstrate his fond happy memories of her and his time on the island. However in the final stanza there is a sudden change in tone and rhythm as he stops reminiscing on his time with his Aunt and abruptly states ‘by the time I had learned a little, she lay silenced in the absolute black of a sandy grave.’ This repetition of ‘absolute’ echoes the phrase in the third stanza. While before, the dark was safe and comforting as he slept, in the last stanza it is related to death. In this line, however, the dark is more menacing as by saying she is ‘silenced’, it shows resentment as she died unwillingly, which could imply a later unhappiness on the island, as well as mirroring the death of the Gaelic language in Scotland.Furthermore, MacCaig often chooses to omit end stop lines which suggests that the poet’s narrative is his natural train of thought, for example ‘But I hear her still, welcoming me with a seagull’s voice across a hundred yards of peatscapes and lazybeds and getting angry, getting angry with so many questions unanswered.’ The lack of full stops show that the narrator is not pausing as he is so swept up in his own thoughts that the only formality is in the closing line, where he uses a declarative statement to show the finality of death. This demonstrates that for him, home is no longer a place of perfect happiness as the death of his Aunt has caused him a sense of loss, regret and frustration. Alliteration is also used throughout the poem to convey the emotions that the poet is using. One example of this is in the final stanza where he states ‘by the time I had learned a little, she lay,’ these soft ‘l’ consonant sounds are said gently which reflect the sadness the narrator feels at her death, and show his total unhappiness, despite being at the home of all his happy memories.