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Relevant Background | Themes | Poetic Techniques | Imagery
Relevant Background
- Robert Frost was born in San Francisco. He lived most of his life on farms in the state of New England, on the eastern side of America. His rich grandfather bought him a farm.
- He went to university at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later Harvard, but never gained a formal degree.
- Overall, he had a difficult childhood and a lot of personal loss and grief in his adult life. At times he suffered chronic depression.
- He was one of America's leading 20th-century poets and a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
- Among his early jobs, he taught school and worked in a mill and as a newspaper reporter. He remained a teacher and lecturer for much of his life.
- His poetry is the story of a man who escaped to the country, because he felt his vocation was to be alone. By his own admission he was ‘unwilling to explain’ his life choice, but his poetry is a symbolic record of his reflections and realizations.
- Frost is often called a pastoral poet, a poet who portrays the benevolent side of country life. This is true in the sense that he expressed the beauty of the landscape of New England in his poetry. But there was usually a dark or troubled spirit at work in his poems. Nature is not always benevolent in Frost’s poems.
- Though he was referred to as a nature poet, Frost disliked this label because he usually included people in his poetry. Frost’s poetry is known for its country philosophy and wisdom. Yet there is an edgy and critical commentary on human life lurking in many of his poems. Frost was not just a happy and easy-going woodland philosopher.
- Frost was a poet of deep thoughts. Behind his descriptions of nature and everyday activities, you can find a deeper meaning. When he described events, Frost usually had a moral point or strange observation to make. He explored an indifferent universe with its mysteries of darkness and irrationality.
- Frost wrote in a clear and easy to understand manner, unlike many of the more experimental twentieth century poets. Frost was both down-to-earth and understated. He was a poet of ironic insight.
- Frost was a poet of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes.
- His portraits have a psychological complexity. He may appear simple but his poetry is profound. His poetry has layers of ambiguity and irony.
- His verse forms are traditional and have a discernable shape and pattern.
- Some of his poems have a strict line rhyming pattern. Many of his poems are written in blank verse [un-rhyming lines], which pre-dates Shakespeare.
- When he began as a poet, Frost disliked the modern free verse. Its lack of regular pattern didn’t appeal to him. But he adopted its rhythms as he matured.
- Frost liked to write poetry in the language he heard spoken everyday. The many everyday phrases in his poetry show this aspect of his style. This trait makes his poetry modern.
- In many of his poems, his rhythm is based on the way the human voice groups or assembles words and sounds in spoken English. While many of his poems have a regular number of syllables and would fit into a traditional system of poetic rhythm, it is better to listen for the rhythm of the everyday speaking voice in Frost’s poems.
- Frost, therefore, is a blend of the traditional and modern poet. Some of his poems have regular lines of ten syllables. This type of line was traditionally divided into ten units of sound. Often in a Frost line of ten or so syllables, there are four units of sound based on the natural rhythm of speech.
Themes
1. Frost explored the relationship between humanity and nature. Frost’s pastoral scenes are often sources of philosophical insights:
‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference’ [The Road]
‘Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree’ [The Birches]
‘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’ [Mending Wall]
‘And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other’ [Out, Out]
‘The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn’ [The Tuft]
‘The trees…let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers’ [Spring Pools]
‘What but design of darkness to appal? —
If design govern in a thing so small’ [Design]
‘I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired’ [Apple Picking]
2. Frost believed that human beings live isolated lives, despite being in close proximity to each other:
‘We keep the wall between us as we go’ [Mending Wall]
‘Good fences make good neighbours’ [Mending Wall]
‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by’ [The Road]
‘And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs’ [Out, Out]
‘And I must be, as he had been— alone,
“As all must be,” I said within my heart,
“Whether they work together or apart”.' [The Tuft]
‘Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him’ [The Tuft]
‘When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye’ [Acquainted]
‘Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself
Summer or winter, and could play alone’ [Birches]
‘No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard’ [Provide Provide]
3. While Frost often emphasised human loneliness and alienation, he sometimes believed that human solidarity really existed. In some poems, Frost believed that despite our separation as individuals, humans are social beings. At times he felt the exhilaration of spiritual bonds with people; at other times he felt the need to even purchase friendship.
[Argue Frost’s ambivalent attitude to isolation and intimacy by considering the quotes used for theme 2 and the additional quotes below for theme three]
‘And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone’ [Tuft]
‘ “Men work together,” I told him from the heart,
“Whether they work together or apart”.' [Tuft]
‘I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line’ [Mending Wall]
‘Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all’ [Provide Provide]
4. Frost attempted to get at the heart of the mystery of living:
‘And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth’ [Road]
‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it’ [Mending Wall]
‘The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there’ [Mending Wall]
‘He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting’ [Out,Out]
‘I thought of questions that have no reply’ [Tuft]
‘I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain’ [Acquainted]
‘Let them think twice before they use their powers’ [Spring Pools]
‘What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?’ [Design]
‘I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass’ [Apple Picking]
‘It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood’ [Birches]
5. Frost explored the relationship between nature and human beings. Nature has emotional, spiritual or sensual effects:
‘Sheer morning gladness at the brim’ [Tuft]
‘A message from the dawn
That made me hear the wakening birds around’ [Tuft]
‘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’ [Mending Wall]
‘Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.’ [Out,Out]
‘Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off’ [Apple Picking]
‘There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall’ [Apple Picking]
‘So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be’ [Birches]
‘Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better’ [Birches]
6. Frost shows an awareness that all life is brief and that it either fades or ends abruptly. Life dies. He recognises that he too will die. His poetry shows that he, like many people, has a desire to fill his days with as much productive living as possible before that time comes.
‘The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag
Was once the beauty Abishag’ [Provide Provide]
‘I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence’ [Road]
‘Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all’ [Out, Out]
‘Little — less — nothing! — and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs’ [Out, Out]
‘Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers’ [Spring Pools]
‘Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth’ [Design]
‘For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired’ [Apple Picking]
‘One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is’ [Apple Picking]
‘May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return’ [Birches]
‘No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard
Or keeps the end from being hard’ [Provide Provide]
Poetic Techniques
Frost used literary techniques such as dialogue, first and third person narrative, personal reflection, figurative imagery and language, symbols and personification in his poems. He is a poet with immense variety of tone. He moves from exhilaration to black moods. There is an ironic voice in most of his poems. He used a good deal of laconic understatement. His poetry could be gentle or full of dread.
Sound Effects
The colour coding for sound repetition is as follows:
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of first letters
Assonance
Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds.
Internal Rhyme or Cross Rhyme or Conventional (end of line) Rhyme
Internal Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming within a line
Cross Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming across two or more lines
Consonance, including sibilance.
Consonance is repetition of consonant sounds. Sibilance is repetition of ‘s’ sounds
Consonance, Cross Rhyme and Internal Rhyme may incorporate Alliteration and Assonance.
Try to add your own further examples to those below.
If you refer to these techniques when answering on a poet, state their purpose in re-enforcing meaning or creating the language construct that a poem is. Present them as evidence of the poet’s craft.
The following are four sample analyses that you should try to repeat on other poems:
The poem ‘After Apple Picking’ contains abundant sound repetition. Consider the verbal music created by the two examples of alliteration [b and l], the line rhyme [in], the cross-rhyme [um and om], the internal rhyme [load] and the assonance [ee and ea] of the following quote. Note also the onomatopoeic effect of ‘rumbling’.
‘I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in’.
Note how 19 different ‘l’ sounds create a consonance in ‘Spring Pools’. Eleven of the ‘l’ sounds occur in the first four lines. The repetition of this melodious sound provides a sound effect that enhances the beauty of the description of nature. This consonance creates a mellifluous effect. This effect may also be labelled euphonic. Note also the fourteen soft ‘t’ sounds in the first two lines of the poem.
Note the near perfect balance of sounds in both halves of the following line from ‘Spring Pools’:
‘These flowery waters and these watery flowers’.
The line is split perfectly by the word ‘and’. The only changes in sound are the reversing of the word order and the switching of the ‘y’ and the ‘s’ endings. The line contains three internal rhymes [These, flower and water].
The poem has many other examples of consonance and musical effects that you can seek out.
Note the effective sibilance in this line from ‘Out, Out’.
There are five ‘s’ sounds in this line:
‘Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it’.
This sibilance emphasises the spreading of the scent in the breeze. It creates a musical effect. Note also how the assonance [ee] enhances the sensual effect.
Note how verbal music enhances the aural imagery of the following rhyming couplet from ‘A Tuft of Flowers’:
‘That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground’.
Consider the verbal music created by two examples of alliteration [m and h], the two examples of assonance [a and a, e and ea], the line rhyme [ound], the two cross-rhymes [hear and ing] and the sibilance[s, sc, th, s]. Some of these sound effects blend in to each other. Note how ‘hear’ in the second line is part of the alliterating, assonance and cross-rhyme effects. This sibilance is an example of onomatopoeia because this ‘s’ sound repetition reinforces the aural image of the whispering sound of the scythe.
There are many detailed examples of sound techniques illustrated in the poems on the Ordinary Level English web pages, Out Out, The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall.
Rhyme
Some of Frost’ poems are in blank verse. Some of his poems have a strict rhyming pattern. Some of his poems have variable rhyming without any pattern.
In ‘Out, Out’ there isn’t a regular rhyming scheme. There is a small amount of rhyming. The third and third last lines rhyme with ‘it’. The word ‘other’ in line four half rhymes with ‘ether’ in line twenty-eight. Lines eighteen and twenty end in the same word ‘hand’. This is an example where rhyming emphasises the word that is central to the narrative of the poem.
Otherwise ‘Out, Out’ is a blank verse paragraph.
Many of the longer narrative poems are written in blank verse paragraphs.
‘The Tuft of Flowers’ is written in rhyming couplets. This is typical of his early poems when he had a profound respect for traditional poetic practices.
The shorter lyric poems and sonnets on the course have a definite rhyming pattern. For example in ‘Spring Pools’, the pattern is ‘aacdcd, eeghgh’. In both stanzas, the first two lines form a couplet, then lines three and five and lines four and six rhyme. This intricate pattern reflects the symmetry between pool and sky that is the subject matter of the poem. The poem reflects nature’s regularity.
Rhythm
Rhythm is a complex aspect of Frost’s poetry. Mostly, writers of student notes make a brief reference to rhythm and leave it at that. But in a Frost poem, rhythm needs to be explained in detail.
Frost used rhythm to create meaning.
You’ve got to use your ear to judge the rhythm. So, read the poem aloud.
Frost had a complex attitude to rhythm. He claimed that he wanted to represent the rhythm of ordinary speech in his poems.
But he was also a conservative. That means that he tried to write poetry according to the rules of the great poets he had read.
In the past, most poets used the rhythm known as iambic pentameter.
The beat of each line is based on a unit of sound known as a foot. The iambic foot is by far the most common type of foot. The iambic foot has two syllables. The second syllable of the pair is the loudest. In other words, it is a stressed syllable. A line of poetry with five of these iambic feet is known as iambic pentameter. ‘Penta’ comes from the Greek word for five.
In traditional poetry, the most popular type of line had ten syllables. Usually such lines were divided into five pair of syllables for the purpose of beat or rhythm. This is the beat that Frost admired and tried to use in his poetry. You can see iambic pentameter in many of Frost’s lines.
Take ‘Mending Wall’ as an example of rhythm in Frost’s poetry. There is a regular rhythm created by the five beats per line.
Consider the opening line as an example of this rhythm or tempo:
‘Something…there is...that does…n't love… a wall’.
[Two syllables… Two syllables… Two syllables… Two syllables… Two syllables…]
This was the most common tempo or rhythm in poetry down through the ages. In this quoted line, there are two syllables per beat. The second syllable of each beat is loud or stressed. This type of rhythm is known as iambic pentameter.
In his early poetry, Frost kept to traditional rules of rhythm.
In his later poetry, he relied more on the rhythm of the voice in normal speech when writing his poetry.
Did traditional metre or rhythm decide the basic rhythm of ‘Mending Wall’?
Trust your ear to judge the rhythm.
To comment on rhythm, quote a typical line and show the rhythm that you hear in the line.
So, you should read or listen again to ‘Mending Wall’.
As well as the formal five even beats or iambic feet, your ear may hear a more natural rhythm.
The same line that was analysed just above can be read as a four beat line:
‘Something…there is...that doesn't love… a wall’.
[Two syllables…two syllables…four syllables…two syllables]
In this reading of the poem the stressed syllable may be any syllable—just trust your ear: ‘thing…is…love…wall. The voice emphasises the last syllable of each beat]
This way of reading the line is based on the human voice and ear as it deals with both the sound and meaning of the words. In fact, the human voice increasingly replaced formal poetic meter in Frost’s mature poetry.
You can find just the same pattern in reading to and listening to the rest of ‘Mending Wall’.
Consider line sixteen:
‘To each…the boulders…that have fallen… to each…’
[Two syllables…three syllables…four syllables…two syllables, with various syllables stressed—each...bould…fall…each]
In fact, while your trained eye may see the five beat rhythm, your ear is more likely to lead you to the four beat rhythm, especially if you read for meaning. You may also reach this conclusion just by sounding the poem out in your head. Try it.
Overall, Frost aspired towards a natural rhythm in the sounding out of his poems. Thus there are two contrasting rhythms, the silent formal metre and the natural beat of the reading voice.
Tone
Many of Frost's poems include an element of melancholy or regret. They contain feelings or sadness or longing that reflects the darker side of the poet. Considering the difficult childhood and life that he experienced, it is logical to conclude that poems with these attitudes were an outlet for his darker emotions - mostly of loneliness and loss. ‘Acquainted With the Night’ is a clear example of this tendency. In other poems Frost experiences the exhilaration of epiphany: a moment of deep spiritual insight as in ‘The Tuft of Flowers’.
Sombre: ‘I have been one acquainted with the night’ [Acquainted]
Cold and Empty: ‘Little – less – nothing! – and that ended it’. [Out, Out]
Brutal and Insensitive: ‘And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs’ [Out, Out]
Contemptuous or Sneering: ‘like an old-stone savage armed’. [Mending Wall]
Sarcastic or Mischievous: ‘My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines’ [Mending Wall]
Rueful or Sorry: ‘I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence’ [Road]
Philosophical: ‘I thought of questions that have no reply’ [Tuft]
Delighted and Exhilarated: ‘sheer morning gladness at the brim’ [Tuft] Alienated: ‘I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain’ [Acquainted]
Terrified: ‘When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street’ [Acquainted]
Grieving [Lamenting]:‘Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone’ [Spring]
Frightening and Morbid: ‘Assorted characters of death and blight’ [Design]
Weary: ‘But I am done with apple-picking now’ [Apple Picking]
Bewildered: ‘I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight’ [Apple Picking]
Sensual: ‘Essence of winter sleep is on the night, the scent of apples [A P]
Wonder; ‘You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen’ [Birches]
Mocking, Casual and Ironic: ‘But I was going to say when Truth broke in
with all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm’ [Birches]
Despairing: ‘It's when I'm weary of considerations’ [Birches]
Nostalgic: ‘So was I once myself a swinger of birches [Birches]
Optimistic: ‘And so I dream of going back to be’ [Birches]
Longing: ‘I'd like to get away from earth awhile’ [Birches]
Ironic and Bitter: ‘The picture pride of Hollywood’ [Provide]
Whimsical: ‘If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone’ [Provide]
Bleak: ‘No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard’ [Provide]
Urgent: ‘Provide, provide’ [Provide]
Imagery
Many of Frost’s images are descriptive or real images. A detailed analysis of this aspect of Frost’s poetry for three of his poems is available on the Ordinary Level English Page.
The following is just one of many examples in the remaining seven poems.
‘up by roots to bring dark foliage on’ [Spring Pools].
This image refers to a process known in your biology textbooks as transpiration. It is a real image from nature.
However in many of Frost’s poems, some descriptive or real objects from nature may have a symbolic meaning. Thus, the orchard of ‘Apple Picking’, the trees in ‘Birches’, the wall in ‘Mending Wall’, the butterfly and flowers in ‘The Tuft of Flowers’ are all real images. But, on a deeper level, they represent or symbolise abstract or spiritual ideas.
In ‘The Tuft of Flowers’, the butterfly is a symbol of the poet’s inquisitive and longing soul. The flowers represent natural beauty and human tenderness. The poem has a phrase that acts as a pointer to the deeper level of interpretation: ‘a message from the dawn’. Look out for these pointers when you read poetry.
In ‘Mending Wall’, the yelping dogs and the hunters are real. But the wall exists in two dimensions of meaning. It is a real boundary between two farms, as real as the yelping canines. But the words ‘elves’ and ‘something’ both suggest there may be a mysterious hidden meaning to the wall. The wall, which is restored annually, may signify the artificial codes, superstitions and traditions by which people separate and isolate themselves.
Here are some examples of symbolism in Frost’s poetry:
Symbolism:
‘That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches’ [Birches]
‘a message from the dawn’ [Tuft]
‘A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite’ [Design]
‘One luminary clock against the sky’ [Acquainted]
‘a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough’ [Apple Picking]
Beside real images, some of which may be symbolic, there are many comparison images in Frost’s poetry. These are known as figurative images and can be separated into a number of categories. Please add your own discovered examples to the sample lists that follow:
Metaphor:
‘The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag’ [Provide]
‘The buzz-saw snarled …’ [Out, Out]
‘A leaping tongue of bloom’ [Tuft]
‘And some are loaves and some so nearly balls’ [Mending Wall]
‘crystal shells shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust’ [Birches]
Conceit
[This is an elaborate comparison and metaphor where some concrete object or process is used to illustrate an abstract reality, be it spiritual, emotional or philosophical]
‘I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again’ [Birches]
Analogy
[An analogy is a simile or metaphor which functions as a parallel image]
‘Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun’. [for the bending trees in Birches]
This comparison of trees to girls can also be considered a Simile.
‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by’ [Road]
‘Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side’ [Mending Wall]
Simile:
‘like an old-stone savage armed’ [Mending Wall]
‘holding up a moth like a white piece of rigid satin cloth’ [Design]
‘a flower like a froth’ [Design]
Personification:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ [Mending Wall]
‘The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard’ [Out, Out]
‘As if to prove saws knew what supper meant’ [Out, Out]
Paradox [apparent contradiction]
The following image shows how each season is a product of the previous one, and how the approaching season negates the previous one:
‘Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday’ [Spring Pools]
‘I am overtired of the great harvest I myself desired’ [Apple Picking]
‘Alone…as all must be whether they work together or apart’ [Tuft]
‘ “Men work together,” I told him from the heart,
“Whether they work together or apart”.' [Tuft]
Logic (argument)
In Frost’s poetry he persuades us rather than argues. Frost uses imagery, symbols and analogy to convey his views. Frost is a narrative poet, and thus his many ideas are conveyed indirectly in most of his poetry. Some lines are argumentative and these help us to decode his images and symbols.
‘And that has made all the difference’ [Road]
‘Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows’ [Mending Wall]
‘Call it a day, I wish they might have said’ [Out, Out]
'Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.' [Tuft]
‘Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better’ [Birches]
In addition to various techniques of sound, tone and imagery, there are many examples of different language techniques found in Frost’s poetry.
Pun (wordplay)
‘He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees’ [Mending Wall]
Compound Words
‘frozen-ground-swell’ [Mending Wall]
Hyperbole (exaggeration)
‘There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch’ [Apple Picking]
Understatement
‘Little — less — nothing! — and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs’ [Out, Out]
Allusion
[Allusion is reference to another work, or imitation of the words of another work. Frost used this device sparingly—he didn’t want to appear too scholarly]
Biblical Allusion:
‘they have left not one stone on a stone…’ [Mending Wall]
‘To each the boulders that have fallen to each…’ [Mending Wall]
‘looking through a pane of glass’ [alluding to an image of St. Paul in AP]
Allusion to Macbeth:
‘Out Out— ’ [Out, Out]
Balance
‘These flowery waters and these watery flowers’ [Spring Pools]
‘No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard’ [Provide Provide]
Conversational Language
‘Call it a day, I wish they might have said’ [a 10 monosyllable line from Out, Out]
‘As he went out and in to fetch the cows’ [a line of 10 monosyllables in Birches]
Poetic Syntax
[The word order is altered from the normal to emphasise descriptive details. In his early poetry, Frost did not always use everyday expression and rhythm, unlike in his later work]
‘But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly’ [Tuft]
Aphorism
‘Good fences make good neighbours’ [Mending Wall]
‘Alone…as all must be whether they work together or apart’ [Tuft]
Form
Frost used the short traditional forms of lyric, sonnet and narrative. His long narrative poems consist of a single verse paragraph, without formal divisions. Here are some illustrative comments on form in Frost’s poems.
‘After Apple Picking’ is a free-verse dream poem with philosophical undertones.
‘Mending Wall’ demonstrates Frost's ability at lyrical verse, dramatic conversation, and ironic commentary.
‘The Road Not Taken’ and ‘Birches’ exemplify Frost's ability to join the pastoral and philosophical modes in lyrics of unforgettable beauty.
Frost is lyrical in his long narrative poems as well as in his shorter poems.
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