Answer:
Loneliness - Because he is an old man, he is lonely and has no more friends, but they are all dead and gone. He is so lonely and desperate that he talks to himself. He is trying to make the best of the time he has left on earth by drinking by himself.
Step-by-step explanation:
"Mr. Flood's Party" is a short poem by an American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935). The poem (published in 1921) is set in the fictional Tilbury Town. It narrates the experience of an old man named Old Eben Flood
The theme of loneliness is portrayed right from the beginning of the poem
"Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know"
The major theme of the poem is loneliness as also describe by using words like "climbing alone", "night", "forsaken", hermitage". Old Eben Flood is an old man from previous generation living in a modern world, whose friends have died. The townspeople shun him because of his age and old living style.
Minor themes of the poem are; desperation, inexorable passage of time, and carpe diem (seize of the day).