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Those Winter Sundays Robert Hayden’s poem Those Winter Sundays retells a grown man’s perspective of his father. The speaker is the man remembering his Father waking up early in the morning before sunrise to make a fire in their home. It was unfortunate that no one had thanked the Father for doing this everyday. Before his laboring weekday outside in the winter cold, he still woke each day before his family and warmed the house. The speaker even tells us that his Father even polished his good shoes. These details in the poem describe the Father as being a hardworking individual, who is concerned about the well being of his family. The poem’s tone shifts in the beginning from a cold, harsh tone to a warmer comforting tone by the seventh line. Although by line nine the poem’s tone shifts again to a negative uncomfortable tone. The cold, harshness of the tone described in the first stanza reflects through the coldness of the house, the Father’s cracked achy hands and the fact that no one has ever thanked him. By the seventh line the house is warm and the tone has seemed to shift to a more comforting feeling. Although the cold has escaped from the house and there is warmth inside but the tone once again changes