Gabrielle+Jaques

**ROBERT FROST**



//WHY did I choose Robert Frost?//

//Analytical Reveiw of 10 Poems://

We make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone find us really out. ‘Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend. But so with all, from babes that play At hide-and-seek to God afar, So all who hide too well away Must speak and tell us where they are. --- || **Analysis** ‍‍Pairing the analogy of hide-and-seek with simple language, Frost discusses the development and sharing of true self in his poem, “Revelation”. ‍‍Themes of love, trust, and even faith are suggested in this short, three-stanza poem; the inclusion of such large concepts in so little words attests to Frost’s skill at using simplicity to express “big ideas.” It is interesting how Frost uses the pronoun “we” instead of a detached “you” or “they”. By using a word that connects us all, Frost insinuates how what he writes about applies to the entire human population, himself included. His tone is not aloof, but rather fondly regretful of how people conceal who they truly are and how rarely they allow themselves to be discovered. The game of hide-and-seek is paralleled to how a person’s true, more vulnerable self is often hidden behind confidence, “light words that tease and flout,” and is rarely revealed to other people. However, like in hide-and-seek, there is a relief after being “found out;” the heart is no longer “agitated” because the uncertainty that comes with hiding and waiting to be found is taken away. Being “found” represents opening up oneself to another human being. Sometimes, in hide-and-seek, people hide so well they can’t be found and they must give themselves away in order for other people to see them. Frost relates this trusting, “olly olly oxen free” spirit to how it is often an individual’s responsibility to reveal their true feelings in order to be understood. If they don’t, their true self will be hidden and alone forever without “the understanding of a friend.” The final stanza reveals how Frost believes that people of all ages, even God, plays this game of hide-and-seek with true selves. Everyone is constantly hiding who they are and trying to find the truth about the people around them. God is no exception. He hides the best, and is sought the most. Frost addresses this and hints at the constant human need for “understanding” and the fear of being found “really out.” If the world knew a person’s true self, would they be accepted? This uncertainty locks people into hiding until a true friend or lover “finds” out the truth or an individual trusts someone enough to “speak the literal.” ||
 * //**‍‍Revelation ‍‍**//

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And they seem not to break; <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">though once they are bowed <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">So low for long, they never right themselves: <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">You may see their trunks arching in the woods <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But I was going to say when Truth broke in <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">(Now am I free to be poetical?) <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I should prefer to have some boy bend them <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Whose only play was what he found himself, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Summer or winter, and could play alone. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One by one he subdued his father's trees <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">By riding them down over and over again <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Until he took the stiffness out of them, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And not one but hung limp, not one was left <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">For him to conquer. He learned all there was <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To learn about not launching out too soon <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And so not carrying the tree away <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To the top branches, climbing carefully <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">With the same pains you use to fill a cup <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Up to the brim, and even above the brim. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">So was I once myself a swinger of birches. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And so I dream of going back to be. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It's when I'm weary of considerations, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And life is too much like a pathless wood <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Broken across it, and one eye is weeping <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From a twig's having lashed across it open. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I'd like to get away from earth awhile <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And then come back to it and begin over. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">May no fate willfully misunderstand me <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And half grant what I wish and snatch me away <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I don't know where it's likely to go better. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But dipped its top and set me down again. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">That would be good both going and coming back. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-- || **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Analysis ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The boy represents childhood innocence and purity. He is untouched by society, “play[s] alone,” and is shielded from the “Truth” that freezes and breaks the tree branches the boy can only bend. So simple is the boy’s life that, in his world of “birch swinging,” he “learned all there was/to learn…” The line break after “was” is a deliberate choice by Frost to hint to readers that this innocent boy knows all he needs to or wants to know; he is master of his own world. This contentment contrasts the speaker’s description of how he feels about life, “I’m weary of considerations…life is too much like a pathless wood.” The speaker, as an adult, hasn’t “learned all there [is]/ to learn,” yet he knows the world is not as simple as birch trees. “Truth,” with “her matter-of-fact”-ness and “ice-storm[s],” and the loss of innocence has “lashed” the speaker’s “eye” open, and now he can never go back and “begin over.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Throughout the poem, Frost places two short sentences, one right after the other to strengthen the meaning he is trying to get across. “But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that,” for example, effectively allows the poem to “zoom in” on the birch trees where the boy plays. These lines are short and simple for purposes of clarity, yet the thoughts they evoke in the reader are deeper than the surface meaning. “So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be,” in particular, suggests the theme of adults dwelling on youth and innocence. The most potent of Frost’s simple sentence pairings is the last two lines of the poem, “That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches,” because it uses the analogy of swinging on and bending birch trees to illustrate the speaker’s desire to leave the complications of his adult life and return, gracefully, to being a “swinger of birches.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The most stirring line of the poem is “Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better,” because its placement comes after the speaker hopes that “fate” won’t “misunderstand” his wish to return to his innocence and instead end his life. The hope the line gives, and the simplicity of the statement draws attention to how although innocence is a precious thing to be missed in adulthood, it is a part of life, and where there is life, there is love. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//Birches//**

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Always wrong to the light, so never seeing <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Deeper down in the well than where the water <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Gives me back in a shining surface picture <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Me myself in the summer heaven godlike <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Something more of the depths—and then I lost it. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Water came to rebuke the too clear water. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Analysis** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"><range type="comment" id="22334">‍‍‍‍Frost’s uncertainty about himself is exemplified in “For Once, Then, Something” through the analogy of a speaker thinking he sees something at the bottom of a well, but losing his moment of clarity because of a ripple disturbing the water. That “one drop” that caused the ripple represents how even the smallest of events or details can distract and/or distort the truth in “the too clear water.” ‍‍‍‍ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Clarity and truth are glorified in this poem because it often mentions how others are “wrong to the light,” blocking their own view into the depths of the well. Most people only see themselves “shining” and “godlike” with a halo-like “wreath of fern and cloud puffs” in the water; they do not and cannot see “more of the depths.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">By stretching sentence length to create a stressful, breathless feeling for the reader, Frost effectively ensures the pace of his poem embodies the meaning behind his words. The first sentence is six lines long, and later sentences are all four lines long with the exception of the final few lines and one line in the middle, “Water came to rebuke the too clear water.” This line creates a feeling of relief as the reader is allowed to catch his or her breath after the almost rambling first sentence. The break from the established pace also recreates the moment of clarity the speaker is experiencing for the reader. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Frost’s choice of the word “picture” to represent the speaker’s reflection is important because it gives reflections a feeling of opaqueness. Hidden behind the “painting” is the truth, the wish or inner meaning of every person, but often this “something” is “blurred” by the distraction of “ripples” and our own reflections. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The final line in its simplicity and brevity gives the reader a feeling of hope and regret because here the speaker reflects that moments of clarity are brief and remembered with uncertainty, “What was that whiteness?” The hope lies in how the truth //is// there, the regret in how it is rare that we get to see it. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//<range type="comment" id="433300">‍‍For Once, Then, Something ‍‍//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One of my wishes is that those dark trees, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Were not, as ‘twere, the merest mask of gloom, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But stretched away unto the edge of doom. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I should not be withheld but that some day <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Into their vastness I should steal away, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Fearless of ever finding open land, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I do not see why I should e’er turn back, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Or those should not set forth upon my track <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To overtake me, who should miss me here <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And long to know if still I held them dear. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">They would not find me changed from him they knew– <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Only more sure of all I thought was true. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Analysis** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Into My Own// addresses a topic that is extremely relevant for high school seniors because it is about the eagerness to “steal away” into the “vastness” of the unknown. The speaker in the poem is “fearless” and expresses his preference for the forest and “dark trees” to be as dark and “doom”-filled as possible; the darker the path, the better. Like dark woods, college looms in the future and excites the majority of students at Medfield High School. Most of us are very eager to go and never “turn back.” Loved ones and friends at school that we leave behind are those that will “miss” the graduating seniors and “long to know if [they] still [hold] them dear.” However, the underclassmen will “set forth upon [the] track” and go off into the unknown as well. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Similar to Frost’s famous //The Road Not Taken//, this poem praises going out alone into the world and traveling through thick woods instead of “open land” or more populated “highway[s]” because by being alone a person can come “into [their] own” (hence, the title of the poem). //Into My Own// celebrates the future and how the past is best left behind, “I do not see why I should e’er turn back.” <range type="comment" id="610998">‍Growing older, greeting the future with open arms, and becoming “more sure” of one’s truth is what the journey to the “edge of doom” is all about. ‍The theory Frost supports here is that people do not necessarily change as they age and move on in life, but gradually discover and develop into themselves, becoming who they truly are. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The adventurously eager tone and couplet rhyming pattern shares the speaker’s zeal for a journey into the unknown with the reader. Darkness, “doom,” and “gloom” is admitted to be in the “dark trees,” but the reward for such ventures is an assertion of self; the finality of the final couplet, “They would not find me changed from him they knew–/Only more sure of all I thought was true,” especially stresses this. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//Into My Own//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Where had I heard this wind before <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Change like this to a deeper roar? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">What would it take my standing there for, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Holding open a restive door, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Looking down hill to a frothy shore? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Summer was past and day was past. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Somber clouds in the west were massed. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Out in the porch’s sagging floor, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Leaves got up in a coil and hissed, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Blindly struck at my knee and missed. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Something sinister in the tone <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Told me my secret must be known: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Word I was in the house alone <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Somehow must have gotten abroad, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Word I was in my life alone, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Word I had no one left but God. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-- || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**<range type="comment" id="493172">‍Analysis ‍** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Repetition throughout the poem manipulates the emotional response from the reader as well as the imagery, line length, and word choice. The final few lines reflect the fear of the speaker and build up the reader’s stress, “Word I was in the house alone/…Word I was in my life alone,/Word I had no one left but God.” This frantic, echo-y repetition amplifies the speaker’s feeling of isolation as if he were shouting down a tunnel and all he hears are his own hysterical calls echoing back at him. Starting with unanswered questions, also gives Frost’s poem an eerie, echo-like feel that embodies the abandonment and aloneness the speaker describes in the final lines, “I was in my life alone.” Also, earlier in the poem, Frost uses repetition to create a sensation of weariness, “Summer was past and day was past,” as the forebodeing storm approaches. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Deliberate word choices of heavy words, such as “somber” and “sagging,” combined with alliteration, “something sinister” (along with the frequency of words with “s” in them such as “summer,” “past,” “restive,” “secret,” “stuck,” “hissed,” “missed,” etcetera) allow the poem to come to life for the reader. The many “s” sounds imitates the sound of violent winds ripping through trees and waves crashing onto sand during a storm. The words with heavy connotations add a menacing quality to the descriptions of the gathering “clouds in the west” as well. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">“Bereft” is particularly interesting because it embodies the speaker’s panic as a storm approaches. Isolation transforms tame leaves into angry “hiss[ing]” snakes and calm winds into “roar[ing]” storm gales; paranoia (“my secret must be known”) takes over. The storm is not just another storm, but a tempest that is specifically after the speaker, who is alone and vulnerable. The last line especially reflects the common human coping technique for fear: faith. After the all the unanswered questions, realizations of sure danger, and paranoia, Frost ends his poem with the speaker’s reference to how he has “no one left but God” to cling to as the storm approaches him. ||
 * //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**<range type="comment" id="36885">‍‍Bereft ‍‍** //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The living come with grassy tread <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To read the gravestones on the hill; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The graveyard draws the living still, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But never any more the dead. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The verses in it say and say: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">“The ones who living come today <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To read the stones and go away <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Tomorrow dead will come to stay.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">So sure of death the marbles rhyme, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Yet can’t help marking all the time <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">How no one dead will seem to come. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">What is it men are shrinking from? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It would be easy to be clever <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And tell the stones: Men hate to die <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And have stopped dying now forever. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I think they would believe the lie. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">--- || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Analysis** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Personifying the gravestones and having the speaker refer to the gravestones' opinion of death makes the poem, “In a Disused Graveyard,” uncomfortably humorous because it makes light of serious topics. A haunting stanzasdiscussing how the living can “come today” and then “go away” while the “dead will come to stay” in the graveyard is sandwiched between stanzas expressing comical disappointment in how “no one dead…seem[s] to come” to the graveyard. The humor is unusual because more often a speaker will lament an abundance of burials, not a lack thereof. Frost takes advantage of this unexpected perspective and uses it to address Man’s fear of death, “What is it men are shrinking from?” To the gravestones, death is steady and natural and a lack of burials is upsetting. It’s true “Men hate to die” and fear being forgotten with nothing but an engraving on a tombstone to remember them by, but without the death, there would be no life and no graveyards to visit. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The title of the poem is particularly interesting. Instead of “unused” or “misused,” Frost chose “disused” as the adjective describing the graveyard. This word choice is important because it stresses that the graveyard is no longer being used, opposed to it never being used or being used incorrectly. “Disused” sparks a reader’s interest in the poem because it is such an unexpected word choice. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Despite the poem’s dark subject matter, the final stanza does have some hope hidden behind the grim message that men can never “stop dying now forever.” The hope lies in that the gravestones would “believe the lie” that men “stop dying now forever” because men are so innovative and so stubborn that, of all creatures, they are able to live forever by making their mark on the world. Only by making a real difference will there be more left of a person than a buried body and a tombstone. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//<range type="comment" id="316478">‍‍In a Disused Graveyard ‍‍//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I wonder about the trees. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Why do we wish to bear <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Forever the noise of these <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">More than another noise <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">So close to our dwelling place? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">We suffer them by the day <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Till we lose all measure of pace, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And fixity in our joys, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And acquire a listening air. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">They are that that talks of going <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But never gets away; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And that talks no less for knowing, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As it grows wiser and older, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">That now it means to stay. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">My feet tug at the floor <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And my head sways to my shoulder <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Sometimes when I watch trees sway, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From the window or the door. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I shall set forth for somewhere, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I shall make the reckless choice <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Some day when they are in voice <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And tossing so as to scare <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The white clouds over them on. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I shall have less to say, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But I shall be gone. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Analysis** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">“The Sound of Trees” reminds me of //Waiting for Godot// because both works are centered on action versus inaction, yet they differ in the speaker’s decision. In Frost’s poem, the speaker resolves to not talk about going somewhere but actually leaving, “I shall be gone,” but in Beckett’s play, the two main characters never leave and only talk about it (like the trees “that talk of going but never get away”). The trees, even when they are “wiser and older,” keep talking “of going” even when they know they “mean to stay” right where they are, just like Vladimir and Estragon. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Transitioning from a casually reflective tone, “I wonder about the trees,” to a more determined, strong ending, “I shall make the reckless choice,” the poem narrows from the broad thoughts of trees, to the specific lesson the speaker learns from them. Trees are loud and bend in the wind all the time, “we suffer them by the day,” yet they never do anything or move despite all their “noise.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"><range type="comment" id="911184">‍Personifying the trees, “…they are in voice/and tossing so as to scare the white clouds…” strengthens the parallels between trees who “talk of going” when they never mean to move and people who do this as well. Frost uses this poem to comically point out how ridiculous and sad people are who talk of leaving but never go. The lesson in the speaker’s resolution to “set forth for somewhere” (the word choice, here, indicating a specific place doesn’t matter so long as it’s a journey) is that moving and //doing// things, opposed to merely talking about them while staying still, is pointless. ‍ Frost’s point is that meaningless “what-if?” talk makes time and our lives become unimportant, “we lose all measure of pace,/and fixity in our joys…” In order for meaning and purpose to exist, there must be “less to say” and more to do in our lives. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//The Sound of the Trees//**

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">O Star (the fairest one in sight), <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">We grant your loftiness the right <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To some obscurity of cloud -- <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It will not do to say of night, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Since dark is what brings out your light. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Some mystery becomes the proud. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But to be wholly taciturn <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">In your reserve is not allowed. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Say something to us we can learn <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">By heart and when alone repeat. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Say something! And it says "I burn." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But say with what degree of heat. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Use language we can comprehend. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Tell us what elements you blend. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It gives us strangely little aid, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But does tell something in the end. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And steadfast as Keats' Eremite, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Not even stooping from its sphere, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It asks a little of us here. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It asks of us a certain height, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">So when at times the mob is swayed <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To carry praise or blame too far, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">We may choose something like a star <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To stay our minds on and be staid. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">--- || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Analysis** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The necessity of both faith and science is addressed in Frost’s poem through the mystery and dependability of the stars. Like religion and God-figures, stars have the “right to some obscurity” and “mystery,” but they are not entirely aloof. They give humanity hope and reassurance that the universe is bigger and brighter than manmade problems by never moving or “stooping from [their] sphere.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Despite the simple, unchanging beauty of the stars, Frost addresses how Man still yearns for more of an explanation besides “I burn.” Science and “language we can comprehend” fulfills the need to explain the world away, but does not “aid” in the human need for a deeper meaning in life. The stars, “steadfast” and always there for stargazers, represent the unchanging “bigness” of the world. When life and the “mob[s]” of the world are unpredictable and chaotic, the stars serve as a reminder that <range type="comment" id="517393">‍no matter what happens, the stars will always be there ‍. Consistency amidst the confusion and messiness of everyday life, “when [we are] alone,” can calm and clear the most frantic of minds. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Pairing short sentences with commanding verbs (like “talk,” “use,” and “tell”) creates a desperately reasonable tone for the three lines asking the stars to use science to explain themselves. This exemplifies how people feel they //need// to understand as much as they can about the world around them as possible, even though such factual understandings do not “aid” them in their quest for meaning or true self. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Though Frost says that the stars are not “taciturn,” many of the word choices in the poem imply just that. Words such as “loftiness,” “fairest,” and “proud” give the stars a grand connotation and justifies the “mystery” of the starlight being obstructed by clouds. Darkness only “brings out [the] light” more, but clouds block it completely. In life, hope and faith are often strengthened in dark times, but when we are blinded by greed or jealousy, these “stars” are “obscured” completely without our knowledge behind “cloud[s].” ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//Choose Something Like a Star//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As vain to raise a voice as a sigh <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">In the tumult of free leaves on high. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">What are you in the shadow of trees <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Engaged up there with the light and breeze? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Less than the coral-root you know <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">That is content with the daylight low, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And has no leaves at all of its own; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And look up small from the forest's feet. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The only leaf it drops goes wide, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Your name not written on either side. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">You linger your little hour and are gone, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And still the wood sweep leafily on, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Not even missing the coral-root flower <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">You took as a trophy of the hour. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-- || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Analysis** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Through word choice and comparing walking through the woods with life, an individual’s insignificance is highlighted in “On Going Unnoticed.” The topic of Frost’s poem appears to be discouraging, however the final few lines leave the reader with a contented hopefulness about how humans make the most of what they have, “you took [flowers] as a trophy of the hour.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To convey the smallness of human existence in comparison with more permanent, unchangeable things in nature, Frost assigns words with specific connotations to humans (for example: “vain,” “less,” “small,” and “little”) that contrast greatly with words assigned to nature (such as “free,” “high,” and “sweep”). The question of “what are you in the shadow of the trees…?” is answered in the second stanza stating people are “less than” the lowest roots in the ground. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Frost’s main point is that humans and life are temporary, “lingering” their “little hour” on earth until they “are gone.” A complaint or “sigh” from one individual is nothing compared with the “tumult” of leaves and trees on a windy day. However, despite a person’s unimportance in relationship to nature’s daunting presence, a person has the ability to take advantage of whatever they get; even if their “name is not written” on anything in the world, humans can take things, change them, make them their own. The world is large, and even when “leaves” don’t have anyone’s name on them, people take them anyway as “trophies” of their “hour.” Regardless of //what// these “trophies” are, they are life changing for an individual while “not even being miss[ed]” by the forest from which they came. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//On Going Unnoticed//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Love at the lips was touch <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As sweet as I could bear; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And once that seemed too much; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I lived on air <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">That crossed me from sweet things, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The flow of--was it musk <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From hidden grapevine springs <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Downhill at dusk? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I had the swirl and ache <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From sprays of honeysuckle <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">That when they're gathered shake <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Dew on the knuckle. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I craved strong sweets, but those <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Seemed strong when I was young; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The petal of the rose <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">It was that stung. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Now no joy but lacks salt, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">That is not dashed with pain <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And weariness and fault; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I crave the stain <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Of tears, the aftermark <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Of almost too much love, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The sweet of bitter bark <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And burning clove. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">When stiff and sore and scarred <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I take away my hand <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From leaning on it hard <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">In grass and sand, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The hurt is not enough: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I long for weight and strength <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To feel the earth as rough <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To all my length. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Analysis** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">“To Earthward” is written partly in the past tense to reminisce the speaker’s youth, and partly in the present tense, to discuss the speaker’s current state of mind. The beginning few stanzas are fast paced and the lines are deliberately broken (“I lived on air/that crossed me from sweet things…”) to give readers the sensation that the words are nearly tripping over themselves as they read. The interruption of one thought with another emulates the frantic, eager thoughts and emotions of youth. Positive words, such as “springs,” “sprays,” “honeysuckle,” “rose,” and especially “sweet,” contribute to Frost’s vivid imagery of how emotions are pure and fresh for young people, “…as sweet as I could bear;/and once that seemed too much.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The abrupt change from past tense to present tense establishes the “turn” moment of the poem. Instead of love being “sweet” and overwhelming, it is less pure. Frost’s word choice in these last four stanzas illustrates this strongly with words like “salt,” “pain,” “weariness,” “fault,” “stain,” “bitter,” “hard,” and “hurt.” It’s interesting how “salt” is included as an obvious contrast to “sweet;” it serves as an effective, smooth transition from youthful joy, and weary bitterness. While love is still there, the emotion is not as pure, “dashed with pain/and weariness and fault,” and the speaker mentions how he “craves” the untainted, uncomplicated passion he had when he was young. Frost’s attention to detail in his word choice, using rough words to convey a rough life lived by the speaker, allows him to communicate “big” thoughts with little words. This poem especially attests to his skill at simplicity. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A longing for death, “to feel the earth as rough/to all my length,” is expressed in the final stanza, but the weary words suggest only that the speaker is tired of life’s complications, not that he is resolving to commit suicide. The speaker is frustrated that his feelings cannot be as pure as they were in his youth because the complications in the present to not make up for the sweetness he used to be overwhelmed by, “The hurt is not enough.” ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**//To Earthward//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Works Cited:// <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

//Voicethreads:// //Revelation// by Robert Frost: media type="custom" key="13698250" //The Sound of Trees// by Robert Frost: media type="custom" key="13698254"

//Works Cited for Voicethreads:// //Revelation -// //The Sound of Trees// -

//Essay://


 * Coming Soon!*

wellllll...........if it isn't Ethel Barrymore....