In this section, learn more about the complex technique used in Robert Frost's poems. Here we take a look at the common themes in Frost's poetry, the literary devices he utilizes, and his unique approach to language with his creation of his theory, "The Sound of Sense." Each subsection will include examples of his poems to help better explain the art of his craft.
One of the most common and notable themes of Frost's work revolves around his love of nature. Surrounded by nature throughout most of his life---especially in rural country---the poet had plenty of inspiration to draw from the natural world, and he often used his observations of nature to describe much heavier concepts. Mordecai Marcus, a long-time English professor at the University of Nebraska, writes in his explication of Frost's poems that "[the] natural scene" and the "arrangements of rural life" is what "[provides] the great backdrop for Frost's struggles with human bonds and with the cosmos" (19). Indeed, you may notice nature as a recurring theme in many of the following poems mentioned on this page, and it may overlap with some of the other themes to be discussed.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Summary and Analysis:
In this poem, Frost depicts a lone traveler riding on horseback. The traveler pauses in the woods on a winter evening, enthralled by the scene around him. However, instead of staying to enjoy the tranquil beauty of the snowy woods, the traveler chooses to continue on his journey, for he remembers that he has responsibilities that he must attend to, and he also has a long way to go before he can rest.
Here, Frost seems to comment on the tension between wanting to escape to the enticement of nature and having to meet the demands of human duty.
One of Frost's distinguished skills in writing poetry is his ability to convey human emotion. He "saw poems as originating in an emotional impulse," and it is only by "the poet's acceptance of that impulse" can he achieve "a wise apprehension of the love object or the experience, no matter how temporary" (Marcus 13). His simple yet vivid language expertly captures many complex emotions---a prominent example being the experience of love.
She is as in a field of silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To every thing on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightlest bondage made aware.
Summary and Analysis:
In this short poem, the narrator compares a woman to a silken tent. He uses the tent's fragile yet resilient features to describe the woman's personality, which he lovingly admires. The strong center pole represents the woman's soul, while the ties that hold it to the ground are her obligations to her husband. However, despite her ties, she still moves freely (Baldwin).
Not only does Frost's poetry playfully and skillfully illustrate themes of nature and emotions, but he also uses his writing skills to address issues he finds to be important. These issues consist of political and social conflicts that "more than hint where his own sympathies lie" (Marcus 18). However, not all of his poems explicitly address conflicts within societal systems, nor do they always reveal which side he takes. Sometimes he writes about "the difficulty of seeing which attitude is better than another" (Marcus 18). In summary, one of the central themes in Frost's work is how humans either relate or conflict with each other's values.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
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 neighbors.’
Summary and Analysis:
In this poem, a farmer seems to question the purpose of the wall between him and his neighbor's property. He feels it is unnecessary to have, for it does not serve any purpose other than being a barrier between them. His neighbor thinks it is supposed to make them better neighbors, but the farmer remains unconvinced. He lightly presses to his neighbor that such reasoning is baseless, but his neighbor continues building the wall, once again restating that "Good walls make good neighbors." The farmer imagines his neighbor as a savage from the Stone Age, performing a task (building the wall) that travels back to ancient times; this is perhaps Frost's way of comparing tradition to the practice of building walls.
It is in this poem that Frost provokes the question of whether boundaries between people are truly necessary. While they can give us a sense of privacy and independence, they also can prevent us from connecting, resulting in conflict that keeps us from forming deeper relationships.
Perhaps some of the deeper themes Frost addresses are the complications of life and death. As someone who experienced multiple tragedies throughout his life, Frost had plenty of personal attachment to these themes. As Frost famously said: "In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on" (qtd. in Max). Oftentimes you will notice that to describe life and death, Frost reverts to descriptions of natural phenomena, such as the changing of the seasons, or vivid scenes of day and night landscapes.
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said.
She took the market things from Warren’s arms
And set them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.
‘When was I ever anything but kind to him?
But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said.
‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I?
If he left then, I said, that ended it.
What good is he? Who else will harbor him
At his age for the little he can do?
What help he is there’s no depending on.
Off he goes always when I need him most.
He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,
Enough at least to buy tobacco with,
So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.
“All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay
Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.”
“Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.”
I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself
If that was what it was. You can be certain,
When he begins like that, there’s someone at him
Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—
In haying time, when any help is scarce.
In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’
‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said.
‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’
‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.
When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,
Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,
A miserable sight, and frightening, too—
You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him—
I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed.
Wait till you see.’
‘Where did you say he’d been?’
‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house,
And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.
I tried to make him talk about his travels.
Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’
‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’
‘But little.’
‘Anything? Mary, confess
He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’
‘Warren!’
‘But did he? I just want to know.’
‘Of course he did. What would you have him say?
Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man
Some humble way to save his self-respect.
He added, if you really care to know,
He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.
That sounds like something you have heard before?
Warren, I wish you could have heard the way
He jumbled everything. I stopped to look
Two or three times—he made me feel so queer—
To see if he was talking in his sleep.
He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember—
The boy you had in haying four years since.
He’s finished school, and teaching in his college.
Silas declares you’ll have to get him back.
He says they two will make a team for work:
Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!
The way he mixed that in with other things.
He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
On education—you know how they fought
All through July under the blazing sun,
Silas up on the cart to build the load,
Harold along beside to pitch it on.’
‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’
‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger!
Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.
After so many years he still keeps finding
Good arguments he sees he might have used.
I sympathize. I know just how it feels
To think of the right thing to say too late.
Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.
He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying
He studied Latin like the violin
Because he liked it—that an argument!
He said he couldn’t make the boy believe
He could find water with a hazel prong—
Which showed how much good school had ever done him.
He wanted to go over that. But most of all
He thinks if he could have another chance
To teach him how to build a load of hay—’
‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment.
He bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags and numbers it for future reference,
So he can find and easily dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.
You never see him standing on the hay
He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’
‘He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be
Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different.’
Part of a moon was falling down the west,
Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it
And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
As if she played unheard some tenderness
That wrought on him beside her in the night.
‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’
‘Home,’ he mocked gently.
‘Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’
‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’
‘I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’
Warren leaned out and took a step or two,
Picked up a little stick, and brought it back
And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.
‘Silas has better claim on us you think
Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles
As the road winds would bring him to his door.
Silas has walked that far no doubt today.
Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich,
A somebody—director in the bank.’
‘He never told us that.’
‘We know it though.’
‘I think his brother ought to help, of course.
I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right
To take him in, and might be willing to—
He may be better than appearances.
But have some pity on Silas. Do you think
If he’d had any pride in claiming kin
Or anything he looked for from his brother,
He’d keep so still about him all this time?’
‘I wonder what’s between them.’
‘I can tell you.
Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—
But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.
He never did a thing so very bad.
He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good
As anyone. Worthless though he is,
He won’t be made ashamed to please his brother.’
‘I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.’
‘No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay
And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.
He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.
You must go in and see what you can do.
I made the bed up for him there tonight.
You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.
His working days are done; I'm sure of it.’
‘I’d not be in a hurry to say that.’
‘I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.
But, Warren, please remember how it is:
He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon.’
It hit the moon.
Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.
Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.
‘Warren,’ she questioned.
‘Dead,’ was all he answered.
Summary and Analysis:
This poem concentrates on a conversation between Warren and his wife, Mary, both of whom are farmers. They debate whether they should allow Silas, an old farmhand, to be allowed to stay at their home. Warren argues that they should not take Silas back due to his deteriorating health which will make him a burden to their labor. He adds that he told Silas that he would never take him back after leaving during the middle of the previous haying season. Mary is more sympathetic to Silas's terminal illness, and she describes to Warren how exhausted Silas seems to be, as she saw him sleeping next to the stove inside of their house, mumbling words in his sleep. She reassures her husband that Silas isn't trying to trick him, that he just wants to return to a place that mattered to him in his final years of life. She implores to Warren that "home" is a safe place, one where even though someone is no longer able to to contribute to the labor, it is still a basic right to everyone. Warren argues her by saying Silas should have gone to his brother, but Mary counters him by pointing out that they may be estranged from each other, which is why he probably avoided much discussion of his brother to his employers. After some more discussion, Mary convinces Warren to go check on Silas and offer him the bed she made up for him. Warren reluctantly concedes, only to return with bad news: Silas died.
Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" speaks volumes about the connection between life and death, for Silas returns to the farm because it was a significant place in his life, one where he hopes to find belonging and peace in his final days. The scene where the cloud obscures the moon as Mary waits for Warren to return from checking on Silas can symbolize death, for the light of the moon may represent Silas's life, and the cloud that smothers his light is death, perhaps marking the moment Silas passes away.
Frost's poetry is well known for its depth, where even the most straightforward language often holds symbolic meanings. He uses everyday images and scenes to represent broader concepts, such as life's choices, human nature, and the passage of time.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Summary and Analysis:
In this famous poem, Frost describes a scene where the speaker comes across a fork in the road. He peers down one road as far as he can see, then turns to the other, which looks slightly less trafficked than the other road, though both remain just as equally worn. After a moment of contemplating which road to take, he ultimately decides to traverse the road he felt was less traveled, for he feels it makes all the difference in his journey.
Frost's "The Road Not Taken" can symbolize life's choices; sometimes we don't always know where our choices will take us, but the freedom to choose our paths in life is our decisions alone.
Imagery, a powerful tool in poetry, enables Frost to create vivid and emotional scenes that draws his readers into the natural world. His descriptive language illustrates clear, sensory pictures that helps him connect the external world with inner experiences.
I stole forth dimly in the dripping pause
Between two downpours to see what there was.
And a masked moon had spread down compass rays
To a cone mountain in the midnight haze,
As if the final estimate were hers;
And as it measured in her calipers,
The mountain stood exalted in its place.
So love will take between the hands a face…
Summary and Analysis:
This poem begins with the speaker journeying into the night, having waited for a break in the rain showers. The speaker then encounters a beautiful scene, where the moon is partially concealed behind the mountain cone, using vivid imagery to describe how the rays act like compasses that measure the mountain.
Through imagery, Frost parallels the moon's encompassing embrace to the tender human embrace (Chen).
Frost is a master at blending simplicity with deeper meanings, often utilizing metaphor and simile to evoke such complex ideas. As Marcus observes, "he [Frost] combines directness with metaphorical or analogical suggestions in such a subtle fashion that the indirections can be overlooked by some readers yet interpreted by others as a sign that nothing of what he says can be taken at face value" (14). Frost balances between both literal and figurative language that allows him to convey themes that invite multiple interpretations.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Summary and Analysis:
In this poem, the speaker ponders two different versions of how the world will end: either in fire or ice.
Frost compares both elements to destructive emotions; fire is to desire as ice is to hatred. His metaphor conveys how both emotions, though different, can lead to the same destructive end.
Irony is used by Frost to reveal the complexities and contradictions within that of the human experience. It is through irony that Frost explores tensions between expectation and reality, where things may not always be as they seem or were hoped to be.
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least, must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in its breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from its nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, “Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be be.”
Summary and Analysis:
This poem is about a bird that accepts its situation because it cannot do anything to get out of it. The poem starts with the speaker saying that not one voice in nature makes a sound when the sun goes down, especially at "what has happened," suggesting that whatever has occurred, there is cause for concern (Mambrol). The bird accepts that the sun has gone and will return again, deeming himself "safe" from the darkness.
The irony is that, even though the bird accepts its situation, its acceptance does not offer it protection against what it fears.
One doesn't need an extensive vocabulary to be able to read Frost's poems, but that doesn't mean his poetry lacks depth. It takes a critical eye to truly appreciate the masterful, thoughtful craftsmanship that goes into his work. Frost defines his "Sound of Sense" theory as "the abstract vitality of our speech"---the musicality and rhythm of language itself (Frost qtd. in Yezzi). To Frost, poetry is not just about conveying meaning through words, but it should also mimic natural speech patterns through traditionalist forms of regular meter, such as iambic pentameter. He believed that to truly experience poetry, it must be read aloud to allow the "sentence sounds"---a term he coined---to emerge. Eric Lindstrom, an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Vermont, writes that Frost's "sentence sounds" extend beyond their literal meanings, instead capturing deeper rhythms and flows of speech in itself. In other words, it is the poet's "equivalent for the way in which diction and syntax capture emotional tone" (Marcus 12). Frost's theory invites readers to appreciate the music of language as well as the way sound can shape meaning, making his poetry a dynamic, sensory experience that surpasses just mere content.
For Frost, rhythm is more than just a formal structure---it's the pulse of the language within the poetry itself. By drawing from his "Sound of Sense" theory, he uses rhythm to reflect the natural patterns of human speech. He puts emphasis not only on following established meters but also on how the voice itself carries meaning. Lindstrom writes that Frost "sublimates the real content of those overhead daily exchanges," turning them into a dynamic prosody that "'breaks' sentence sound across the units of meter and line." In other words, he takes the raw material of everyday conversations and transforms them into a unique rhythm that disrupts the usual flow of sentences, breaking them apart across lines and meters. He sometimes fuses tradition with innovation, allowing himself some flexibility that stays fixed in the cadence of real speech, which gives his work an organic quality.
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
Analysis:
Though Frost praises traditional forms of meter and rhythm, he strays away from some of the conventional standards of poetry in this poem. For example, he doesn't use iambic pentameter (except for one line), instead using up to 11-13 syllables as opposed to ten. Nonetheless, "Mowing" is a good example of Frost applying his theory to his poetry. Here, Frost mimics the back-and-forth swinging of a scythe, accomplishing this through repetition, such as the words "Perhaps/something" and "Something/perhaps" on lines 4 and 5. The reversal of the words almost seems to paint the "action of the scythe as it moves one way then the other, and the thoughts of the worker" (Spacey). Notice how he also uses the alliteration of w's and s's to convey the soft sound of the scythe's movement. In addition, the way he formats the rhyme scheme to that of either close or far apart "[reinforces] certain sounds," making some lines sound like "distant echoes" (Spacey).
Frost's poetry is not only defined by its rhythm but also by the careful balance between sound and silence. He uses pauses, breaks, and spaces between words and lines to further the poem's emotional impact. In some cases, Frost will use enjambment to propel the reader forward through his poems, which forces readers to move to the next line before fully grasping the thought. In other instances, he intentionally avoids it, creating a stillness that invites reflection and emphasis on individual lines. As Tyler Hoffman, a professor of English at Rutgers University-Camden, observes: “If Frost’s use of enjambment carry profound ideological resonances, so, too, does the intentional avoidance of enjambment in his poems” (153). Frost's delicate interplay of sound and silence allows him to manipulate pacing, build tension, and craft moments of profound meaning within the structure of his verses.
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see
From up there always—for I want to know.’
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time: ‘What is it you see,’
Mounting until she cowered under him.
‘I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.’
She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,
Blind creature; and awhile he didn’t see.
But at last he murmured, ‘Oh,’ and again, ‘Oh.’
‘What is it—what?’ she said.
‘Just that I see.’
‘You don’t,’ she challenged. ‘Tell me what it is.’
‘The wonder is I didn’t see at once.
I never noticed it from here before.
I must be wonted to it—that’s the reason.
The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of marble,
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight
On the sidehill. We haven’t to mind those.
But I understand: it is not the stones,
But the child’s mound—’
‘Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,’ she cried.
She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm
That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;
And turned on him with such a daunting look,
He said twice over before he knew himself:
‘Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?’
‘Not you! Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I don’t need it!
I must get out of here. I must get air.
I don’t know rightly whether any man can.’
‘Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time.
Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.’
He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.
‘There’s something I should like to ask you, dear.’
‘You don’t know how to ask it.’
‘Help me, then.’
Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.
‘My words are nearly always an offense.
I don’t know how to speak of anything
So as to please you. But I might be taught
I should suppose. I can’t say I see how.
A man must partly give up being a man
With women-folk. We could have some arrangement
By which I’d bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you’re a-mind to name.
Though I don’t like such things ’twixt those that love.
Two that don’t love can’t live together without them.
But two that do can’t live together with them.’
She moved the latch a little. ‘Don’t—don’t go.
Don’t carry it to someone else this time.
Tell me about it if it’s something human.
Let me into your grief. I’m not so much
Unlike other folks as your standing there
Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.
I do think, though, you overdo it a little.
What was it brought you up to think it the thing
To take your mother-loss of a first child
So inconsolably—in the face of love.
You’d think his memory might be satisfied—’
‘There you go sneering now!’
‘I’m not, I’m not!
You make me angry. I’ll come down to you.
God, what a woman! And it’s come to this,
A man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead.’
‘You can’t because you don't know how to speak.
If you had any feelings, you that dug
With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave;
I saw you from that very window there,
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.
I thought, Who is that man? I didn’t know you.
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs
To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.
Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice
Out in the kitchen, and I don’t know why,
But I went near to see with my own eyes.
You could sit there with the stains on your shoes
Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.
You had stood the spade up against the wall
Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.’
‘I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.
I’m cursed. God, if I don’t believe I’m cursed.’
‘I can repeat the very words you were saying:
“Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.”
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor?
You couldn’t care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretense of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.
But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so
If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!’
‘There, you have said it all and you feel better.
You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the door.
The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up.
Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!’
‘You—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—
Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you—’
‘If—you—do!’ She was opening the door wider.
‘Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.
I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I will!—’
Analysis:
"Home Burial" is one of Frost's longest blank verse poems, rich with pauses, silences, and emotional gaps that help illustrate the emotional distance between the two speakers, whose communication is strained by the death of their child. Frost's clever use of enjambment can be seen in lines 4 and 5, where the female speaker "took a doubtful step and then undid it / To raise herself and look again." Here, enjambment helps Frost convey the speaker's hesitant, breathless movement as she physically descends the stairs, revealing her emotional uncertainty (Brodsky). In addition, Frost's use of enjambment "reflects the character's ongoing struggle to articulate their feelings, further amplifying the tension" ("Critically Appreciate the Poems").