Mending Wall
This poem exemplifies many of the characteristics, both technical
and thematic, that we have come to associate with Frost.
Beginning in the concrete, natural world, Frost asserts in
a conversational tone, “Something there is that doesn’t
love a wall,”. The speculative, musing nature of this
opening somewhat distracts the attention from the inverted syntax
of the 1st three words. Continuing in this relaxed, conversational
tone the 1st person narrator reflects his observations about
the ways in which gaps can be made in walls and introduces the
idea of seasonality – “spring
mending-time”. So far, so good. He describes, with
humorous detail, the mending process and the reluctance of some
stones to stay balanced. The syntax and lexis is simple, reflecting
the simplicity of the story being told. The poem is without
rhyme but is in pentameter. In this way it operates both with
and without rules, and, indeed, the poem itself is somewhat
ambiguous about the need for rules; though he challenges his
neighbour’s thinking, Frost nevertheless goes out each
year at “spring mending-time”, even initiating the
activity –
“I let my neighbour know beyond the hill.”
The process of wall wending causes Frost to consider the need:
“There where it is we do not need the
wall”,
and it is at this point that the poem begins to move from the concrete into
the abstract, as so many of his poems do; he did say himself
once that a poem should “begin in delight and end in wisdom”.
In this case, the walls under consideration move from being
the physical sort that keep cows in their place to being barriers
in relationships, between people. Now we are in the realm of
philosophy. The poem seems to be suggesting that people erect
and carefully maintain the same kind of needless barriers between
themselves as Frost and his neighbour are doing between Frost’s
apple trees and the neighbour’s pines. In relationships,
as in nature,
“something there is that does not love
a wall, that wants it down.”
Here it is Frost’s feeling of springtime “mischief”.
I have a problem with this whole “elves” thing.
I wish I could help you more, but I can’t.
The metaphor of Frost’s neighbour as an “old-stone
savage” suggests the primitiveness of his ideas,
according to Frost, and the comment that “he moves in
darkness” suggests a lack of enlightenment, a lack of
clear sightedness. The literal vision seen by Frost –
his neighbour in the shade of trees carrying mending stones-
translates exactly into this allegory. The “darkness”
that Frost perceives his neighbour as moving in is the darkness
of unreflective tradition:
“He will not go behind his father’s saying’
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
The Black Cottage
Typically of many of Frost’s poems, this has no rhyme
scheme but is basically in pentameter, possibly reflective of
the ambivalent views towards rules and constraint so often implicit
in his work. Typically also, the tone is conversational, the
syntax and lexis simple. Atypically, the poem contains two voices
– that of the poet himself and that of the minister.
It’s longer than the other poems within this anthology,
more rambling and less focused. Maybe the two voices contribute
to this. You get the sense that the minister is thinking out
loud, as prompted by the things he sees around him. We are seeing
the concrete moving into the abstract again, as so often in
Frost.
Thematically, the poem begins by introducing the idea of the
necessity of change; time cannot stand still – there will
inevitably be change, and if it’s not progress it will
be decay. The physical disintegration of the cottage, with its
“weathered windowsill” and “warping boards”
demonstrates this, despite the sons’ intention not to
“have the place disturbed”. Though the cottage represents
the past, however, and is, to the minister, “a sort of
mark / To measure how far fifty years have brought us”,
the past is not all behind the times, as it were; the old lady,
though isolated physically from the current of politics and
the world, nevertheless instinctively held very forward thinking
views on equality and human rights-
“She had some art of hearing and yet not
Hearing the latter wisdom of the world.
White was the only race she ever knew.
Black she had scarcely seen, and yellow never.
But how could they be made so very much unlike
By the same hand working in the same stuff?”-
and was powerful in her naivete: “strange how such innocence
gets its own way.”
This thought leads the minister on to recollect the time he
was thinking of changing the Creed for the sake of fashion –“to
please the younger members of the church/ Or rather say non-members
of the church”. He did not do this in deference to what
she might feel but it leads him to the profound question
“why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.”
Here we have moved swiftly from the desire not to offend an
old lady, who might not have noticed anyhow, to a consideration
of the nature of truth itself. Is truth absolute or relative?
Is it cyclical and determined by fashion? Concrete to abstract,
indeed!
The minister’s dream of a land of preserved truths, hid
from change, is so lyrical and romanticised as to be plainly
impossible, and so the prosaic return to the concrete world
of reality comes almost as a relief. The last line, though,
“Sunset blazed on the windows”,
could perhaps be seen as signalling the end of what the cottage
and the old lady represent. Maybe. This is a hard poem.
After Apple Picking
This one has rhyme, though not in any regular scheme. It is
loosely based around pentameter. Again, in terms of form, we
are seeing a flirtation with rules but an ultimate rejection
of them. As is usual with Frost, the syntax and lexis are simple,
though with a poetic twist:
“Essence of winter sleep is on the night”
is not in any way difficult, but neither is it an everyday
register of language. The tone is conversational, though, and
it is told from the perspective of a 1st person narrator. Often
with frost’s poetry we find that form reflects content.
This poem feels unfinished, which could be seen as replicating
the poet’s indecision, his lack of certainty, about his
destiny. The poem certainly is an extended metaphor –
another typically Frostian technique – and it follows
the pattern of moving from the concrete to the abstract.
In terms of theme, the poem deals with ideas of life and death
by means of the metaphor of the seasonal harvest activity of
apple picking. Frost has stopped apple picking before he has
actually finished the job, but he has had enough. Further, he
is troubled by a mental image created by looking through a sheet
of ice. Ice distorts, of course, as poor glass does. The way
the apples looked in the ice, plus Frost’s tiredness,
caused him to see them in a surreal way, perceiving them as
if they were human souls. In the same way that fallen apples,
bruised or not, are rejected, Frost wonders what happens to
damaged people. The thing is, none of this is explicit; it’s
all vague and dream-like. I get it from the mention of heaven,
the idea that his sleep will be troubled and the reference to
the woodchuck’s “long
sleep”. This is surely hibernation, which I see
as a metaphor for death, maybe purgatory. Certainly it is something
other than “just some human
sleep”. It is not just any sleep which is threatened
with these troubling dreams. I think that Frost is afraid of
being a discarded apple in God’s harvest.
Frost doesn’t do theology much, though, so maybe I’m
seeing things that aren’t there. I do that sometimes!
The Road Not Taken
This poem has a metre which hovers around 8/9 beats to the
line. The rhyme scheme is a regular abaab. The regularity, evenness
and balance of the form and rhyme could be seen to replicate
the evenness of the two paths and the way the poet’s options
were equally balanced. Again, the tone is conversational, the
lexis simple and the syntax generally so, though
“sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long
I stood”
is an inversion of normal speech patters. The story is told
by a first person narrator who offers a concrete anecdote which
becomes a metaphor.
The poem is about choices, and how our choices may be determined
by very trivial things; both paths are “just
as fair”; the one chosen only has “perhaps”
the better claim; really their wear and tear was “about
the same” and they were “equally” leaf covered
on the morning he made the choice. There was really very little
in it! Promising himself he would come back, but knowing he
probably wouldn’t, the poet made a choice which set him
on a path which opened up other paths, other choices. The choice
he made that morning decided the paths he walked thereon in.
Now, of course, this isn’t a poem about getting it wrong
on a D of E expedition! It’s a metaphor for the choices
we make in life which determine the direction our lives take.
Paths are listed on your themes sheet, along with trees and
woods. Here the path is through a wood, presumably full of trees.
“A sense of place connected to a sense of self”
is also listed. This is about a place of choosing, both literally
and metaphorically, and the choice made in that place determines
who the self becomes.
Birches
This poem is written in pentameter but lacks a rhyme scheme
– a not uncharacteristic mixture of freedom and restraint
in terms of form, a kind of ambivalence or indecision which
can be seen to match the content of the poem. We have, once
more, simplicity of syntax and lexis, a conversational tone
with lots of enjambment and a 1st person narrator. We have,
once more, an anecdote which begins in the realm of the concrete
but which becomes a metaphor. There is imagery within this poem
too, though, which is not always the case with Frost. Here we
have the metaphor of the cracking ice on the bark of the trees
as “enamel”, “crystal shells” and “glass”,
all terms indicative of fragility and beauty. Indeed, they might
be seen as divine – “You’d think the inner
dome of heaven had fallen.” Later the bowed down trees,
with their trailing leaves, are described using the simile
“Like girls on hands and knees that throw
their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.”
The boy’s climbing is compared to the careful filling
of a cup brimful, and life is described as being “like
a pathless wood”.
All of this contributes to the success of the overarching metaphor,
which compares Frost’s desire sometimes to escape from
the world temporarily, climbing away from earth like a boy swinging
on a tree, but coming back in due time.
In narrative terms, Frost sees bent trees and likes to imagine
that they have been bowed down by boys playing on them, bending
them down by swinging on them and being catapaulted up by them.
He remembers playing this game, and wishes that he could treat
life so, launching himself out of it for a while when the going
gets tough –
“when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood”.
He doesn’t want to die, though, he realises, and this
is where that ambivalence comes in; life is hard, he wants to
escape “awhile”, but he wants to “come
back to it and begin over” because he realises
that, imperfect though it may be it’s the best he’ll
get –
“I don’t know where it’s likely
to go better.”
For this reason, though he dreams of escape, he fears that
fate may “wilfully misunderstand” him. He wants
to go “Toward heaven”, but not actually to get there
yet.
This is one of Frost’s positive poems about trees; what
they offer here is escape. It’s also about life as a wood,
our way through it as a path and whether or not death is an
escape to be desired.
“Out, Out-“
This poem is based around pentameter, but not rigidly so. It
has no rhyme scheme and so is not constrained in form. Syntactically,
this is more complex than is usual for Frost, less conversational,
though a story is being told to the reader by the “I”
figure of line 10. The lexis is simple, however.
This poem has its roots in a real event which Frost saw reported
in a local paper. Whilst the poem itself remains in the realm
of the concrete, the title “Out,
Out” refers us to Macbeth’s soliloquy on
the nature of life and death, in which life is compared to a
“brief candle”
easily snuffed out, as this boy’s life has been. The metaphor,
then, is implicit in the way the title connects to the narrative
of the poem.
There’s lots of technical stuff to say about this poem:
“snarled and rattled”
are both onomatopoeic and personify the saw as aggressive, setting
up a sense of threat; the senses are used to enable the reader
to experience the scene; “day
was all but done” comes to have a dual meaning,
both literal and metaphorical as the “day”
of the boy’s brief life draws to an end. This adds to
the sense of foreboding; the fact that the saw “leaped”
reinforces the earlier personification, giving the inanimate
saw intent and malice; the boy’s hand is also given its
own identity –
“neither refused the meeting”
the fact that this event, which is a major tragedy in the
lives of those involved, is set against the backdrop of 5 mountain
ranges puts it into a greater perspective – especially
since even those present,
“since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.”
On your theme sheet this fits in under maintenance jobs, life
and death and the use of drama; you must admit, it’s dramatic!
The Sound of Trees
Another Frost tree poem, but at first appears to be an uncharacteristically
negative one. More of that anon.
The poem is based around 7 beats to the line and has an irregular
rhyme scheme. There is a 1st person narrator and the poem is
conversational in tone with fairly straightforward lexis (despite
archaisms like “dwelling place” and oddities like
“fixity”) and a relatively simple syntax though
with some inversions eg. “Why do we
wish to bear
Forever the noise of these”
Frost begins in the world of the senses, as he speculates about
the effect the sound of trees has on people. Unusually for Frost,
he presents this in a negative way, asking why we choose to
“bear” and “suffer” their noise and
suggesting that it unsettles us so that we are unable to enjoy
what we have and are always yearning to move on, though we know
we will not.
In a form of reverse personification – there must be a
term for that – Frost compares himself to a tree:
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder”
presents him as having roots and branches and the subsequent
lines suggest that the motion of the trees inspires in him a
desire for motion. The difference, he says, is that, whilst
they are eternally rooted, one day he will “make
the reckless choice” and go quietly whilst they
stay, swaying noisily. So, though he has begun by appearing
to denigrate the trees for their unsettling effect, he ends
by, as it were, taking their advice and doing what they cannot
do themselves – uprooting themselves and moving on.
To E.T.
Nothing to do with Spielberg or aliens! This is an unusually
personal poem apostrophising Frost’s late friend the poet
Edward Thomas who died in WW1 in 1917. The form is strict pentameter
and the 2nd & 4th lines of each quatrain rhyme. This is
an uncharacteristically rigid structure; it could be argued
that such is the intensity of feeling of the poem that a very
controlled form was required to contain it. We have a 1st person
narrator speaking directly to the late Thomas in a tone which
is at the dignified end of the colloquial spectrum; words like
“slumbered” , “foe” and “unsafe”
contribute to this very slight feeling of formality. For once
there is no overarching metaphor; the imagery is within the
poem, with the simile “Like
dove wings on a tomb” describing the opened book
lying on Frost’s chest and the metaphor “the shell’s
embrace of fire” suggesting that Thomas ran towards a
death which may even have been welcome. (Tanita and Charlotte,
do you remember “The Sonnet Ballad”
by Gwendolen Brook in which death is personified as a coquettish
woman who steals Brook’s lover away in war? I think the
same idea may be going on here. Cecily, Emily and Louise, ask
me for a copy of that poem for AO4 purposes).
Frost is hoping that, by dozing off over his late friend’s
poems, they may be supernaturally reconnected so that Frost
might give his friend the praise and plaudits he never got around
to giving in life. He feels that, with his friend having died
with things unsaid, there will never be closure of the war for
him; he is lamenting what he has lost.
This is a love poem, but it’s brotherly love. It’s
about death and the impact on those left behind. Plainly it
links with Edward Thomas!
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
This poem is in octameter with a rigid aaba rhyme scheme within
each quatrain. Since the poem is about obligation and lack of
freedom, perhaps such a strict form is appropriate to the content.
The syntax is simple with an inversion in the opening line,
and the lexis is straightforward. In fact it is so simple as
to sound like a nursery rhyme. There is a 1st person narrator
and the tone is conversational.
Whilst the poem could be read as merely about a man stopping
for a rest on a long journey, some have seen the snowy woods
as representing a temptation to escape from the demands of life,
possibly into numbing death on this “darkest
evening of the year”. We might (for AO4 purposes)
compare this to Keats’ “Ode
to a Nightingale” in which he states
“many a time
I have been half in love with easeful death”
The final verse would then be seen as a turning back from
temptation towards responsibility –
“I have promises to keep”
So we once more see Frost beginning in the concrete and moving,
almost imperceptibly, into the abstract world of metaphor.
I don’t like the attributing of a cute personality to
the “little” horse
(what do I care how big his horse is?) but I like the use of
the senses in the velvety intensity of the darkness (repeated)
and the onomatopoeic sibilance of
“The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.”
And the howling “ee” sounds which accompany it.
In terms of your themes sheet we’re looking at seasons
and woods, arguably death, but mainly responsibilities.
Two Look at Two
This is in pentameter but lacks a rhyme scheme. It is not 1st
person narrator and its syntax and lexis are more than usually
complicated with reversals and sophistication. The poem is narrative
and the tone conversational though not colloquial. There is
an internal simile when the doe is described as perceiving the
couple as being
“Like some up-ended boulder split in two.”
The poem is about the way humanity relates to, and benefits
from nature; almost always in Frost’s poetry the effect
nature has on humanity is positive and benign. In this respect
he can be likened to Wordsworth, an English Romantic poet (as
was Keats, actually) who also argued that man is invariably
blessed by his contact with the natural world (AO4)
Frost creates a sense that both parties in this interaction
are equal – if anything the buck feels superior, viewing
them “quizzically”.
This encounter is presented as a reward from the earth to the
couple for the respect and love that they have shown towards
it.
Gathering Leaves
The rhythm of this poem is mainly 4/5 beats to the line, working
to an abab rhyme scheme within each quatrain. It is another
poem with a nursery rhyme feel which creates a deceptive illusion
of simplicity. The tone is conversational, the lexis and syntax
simple in the extreme and the concrete anecdote of collecting
autumn leaves is told by a 1st person narrator.
Beginning in the realm of the concrete, the poet describes,
using similes –“light
as balloons” “Like
rabbit and deer”- and metaphors – “the
mountains I raise”- the seasonal maintenance task
of collecting up the fallen leaves. He describes in detail,
using the senses, the weightlessness and colourlessness of the
leaves, repeating the phrase “next to nothing” three
times to stress the seeming insignificance of the leaves. In
the final quatrain he moves into the realm of philosophy asking,
“Who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop.”
Suddenly we’re not talking about the value of leaves
anymore but the value of things on a wider scale, maybe the
value of people. This reminds me of “After
Apple Picking” in that it seems to me to suggest
that we, too, are a crop. This poem might, then, be intimating
that we have no right to determine the value of others.
Desert Places
This connects in my mind with “Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, only it is much darker.
It is in pentameter and rhymes aaba within each quatrain. The
syntax is not complicated though the opening line is lyrical
rather than following patterns of normal speech in this generally
conversational poem. In terms of lexis, archaisms such as “ere”
and “benighted” add distance and lyricism. Beginning
with an anecdotal description of snowfall and his response to
the way that snowfall obliterates the landscape creating a huge
sense of emptiness, the 1st person narrator poet looks beyond
this, beyond even the solar system with its immense
“empty spaces
Between stars”
to the even more immense, more terrifying “desert
places” within his own psyche.
Given the snow this obviously comes in under seasons on your
teachit themes sheet. I think it’s really a “dark
night of the soul” poem, though; it’s bleak!
A Leaf Treader
This is a poem in 3 stanzas each of 8 lines, of which the 2nd
rhymes with the 4th and the 6th with the 8th in each. There
is no regular meter although, when read aloud, a treading rhythm
develops. This is because the enjambment overrides the look
of the lines on the page, eg line 10-11. The 1st person narrator
tells his anecdotal story of leaf treading in a conversational
tone.
This description of a seasonal maintenance task, part of the
natural rhythm of the seasons, becomes more significant than
this; the poet seems to be talking about not only keeping on
top of the leaves but also keeping on top of life. The introduction
of the ideas of fear and safety suggest this. Frost seems in
this poem, as in “The Sound of Trees”, to identify
with the trees, claiming, “They spoke
to the fugitive in my heart
as if it were leaf to leaf.”
At the same time, though, he feels threatened by them:
“And when they came it seemed with a will
to carry me with them to death.”
Frost has to hold out against the “invitation”
of the personified leaves to die with them:
“it
was no reason I had to go because
they had to go.”
The word “invitation” suggests that Frost is not
averse to the idea. He chooses instead, though, to stick with
life and his next duty; treading down the snow.
Life seems to be presented as a chore, akin to the seasonal
agricultural chores in which he is engaged. Death appears almost
tempting, a release. In this respect the poem could be linked
with “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening”, which can be interpreted in a similar
way. In both poems the poet chooses life and duty, but with
a sense of reluctance.
Neither Out Far nor In Deep
This poem in 4 quatrains has a metre which hovers around 6
beats to a line and a simple abab rhyme scheme in each quatraine.
The meter is somewhat like a hymn and the poem altogether is
reminiscent of the work of Emily Dickinson, a 19th C Americam
poet (AO4) The lexis and syntax are simple and the whole poem
seems to be about nothing. As so often with Frost, however,
the simplicity is deceptive. (The same is true of Dickinson.)
In the final stanza the poem is revealed as a metaphor; people
choose to pay attention to the things they cannot reach or change
– the sea- turning their backs on reality – the
land. Despite their powerlessness and lack of understanding
of things unknown and unknowable – “They
cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep”-
people still choose to ignore the realities of life as represented
by the land. Their incapacity is not “ever a bar”
to them and their yearning for the unknown and infinite. This
could be read as a poem about human spirituality. If so the
view is ambivalent; he seems to sneer at humanity’s stubborn
refusal to engage with real life but at the same time admire
its persistence in looking for something better. The final question
could be an invitation to the reader to continue the philosophical
debate. The tone is conversational but there is no “I”
figure in this poem.
There Are Roughly Zones
This poem had no regular meter but the line length does not
dip below 1o beats. The form is suitable to the presentation
of an argument, a set of reasoned and fluent thought processes.
Rhyme comes in blocks of 5 or 6 lines and is not strictly organised.
The poem is told by a 1st person narrator and is conversational
in tone, though the lexis and syntax is more complex than is
usual for Frost. Beginning with a concrete discussion of whether
a peach tree will have died in a storm, the poet moves on to
consider humanity’s perhaps unreasonable desire to push
the boundaries: “What comes over a man,
is it soul or mind-
That to no limits or bounds he can stay confined?”
In the same way that peach trees should not be brought this far north, he
is saying, there are other general rules that should be followed
-
“roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed.”
If we choose to break those laws there is a consequence in
suffering, in this case for the peach tree. Even so, humanity
feels let down when thwarted in its desire to explore and extend.
Frost refers to
“this limitless trait in the hearts of
men.”
As with “Neither Out Far nor
In Deep”, I get a sense of ambivalence in this
last line: there are rules; we need to take responsibility but
the word “limitless” suggests a sneaking hint of
admiration for this determination to pursue Manifest Destiny(AO4)
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