i not get in this poem where be 3 epithets? and i not get what be the irony in end, his parents not realize they forcing him to live dream he not want?

Question

Warren pryor

When every pencil meant a sacrifice
his parents boarded him at school in town,
slaving to free him from the stony fields,
the meagre acreage that bore them down.
They blushed with pride when, at his graduation,
they watched him picking up the slender scroll,
his passport from the years of brutal toil
and lonely patience in a barren hole.
When he went in the Bank their cups ran over.
They marvelled how he wore a milkwhite
shirt
work days and jeans on Sundays. He was saved
from their thistlestrewn
farm and its red dirt.
And he said nothing. Hard and serious
like a young bear inside his teller’s cage,
his axehewn
hands upon the paper bills
aching with empty strength and throttled rage.

Answer 1

American Heritage Dictionary:
ep·i·thet
(ĕp'ə-thĕt')
n.
A term used to characterize a person or thing, such as rosy-fingered in rosy-fingered dawn or the Great in Catherine the Great ...
http://www.answers.com/topic/epithet

In other words, an epithet is a descriptive phrase. Here's one: "their thistledown farm"
Can you find others? There are more than just three in here.

Irony -- his parents are very happy because he is becoming everything they could not ... but he hates his life, working in a bank. He has "rage." He's living his life as his parents want him to, not as he wants to.

Answer 2

thanks very much :)

axehewn hands?
milkwhite shirt?

Answer 3

Yes, exactly!!

Answer 4

thanks very much writeacher :)

Answer 5

You're very welcome, Mohammad! =)