Family Man

It was just that on re-reading, my reaction to 'sweet bird of youth', 'kindling old flames' and 'ocean of tears' was that they were examples of imagery that are fairly familiar; which led me to the conclusion that you had chosen to reflect the 'moderation' (self-regulation) of the 'family' man in those parallel terms, a 'creative writing' scenario in which ideas/aspirations had been transformed into 'familiar' representations. Or something like that. It's not that the stanza as a whole is 'hackneyed', but that it incorporates metaphors that offer an immediate, recognisable interpretation without too much effort from the reader, and I made a careless generalization about the whole on the assumption that it was intentional. Sorry about me; I just assume that everyone will overlook my tendency to make assumptions :>)