Robert Frost

The Oven-Bird
The speaker observes a bird whose call signifies a change in the seasons. By heralding these changes the bird
notes the passage of time, so ultimately this poem is about our progression towards death. Through his medium
of the bird the speaker considers his role of a poet, which is to reveal and thus confront the truth, however
unpleasant this may be at times.
Themes: Nature, life and death and the nature of writing poetry.
Frost was known for writing in a familiar and conversational style, and this sonnet opens in such a way, as
though he is addressing us in person. The speaker makes the assumption that we have all heard the sound of the
oven bird, which of course may not be the case, and this thus intrigues us to read on. There is a jolt at the word
‘Loud’, as though he is emphasizing the importance of what the bird has to say. He describes the bird as ‘a mid-
summer and a mid-wood bird’; descriptions which gets the reader wondering. We know what he means by mid-
summer but the second compound adjective is puzzling. The roll of ‘r’ sounds in ‘mid-wood bird’ also makes us
read the sentence slowly and think about what it may mean.
There are several unusual elements to this poem. The bird is described as a ‘singer’ in the first line, but later
Frost repeats ‘He says…’ three times, almost as if the bird some kind of oracle. It is as though he imbues the
bird with a sense of knowledge, a keeper of life’s mysteries. The bird’s call is distinctive and loud, since he
‘makes the solid tree trunks sound again.’ The assonance and alliteration employed here gives this line a
reverberating quality that could perhaps echo the sound of the bird.
Usually when we think of birdsong we think of a pleasant melodic sound which uplifts and relaxes us. This
particular bird call does not elicit this response, insofar as the poet seems to find it disconcerting. Another name
for the oven bird is the ‘teacher bird’ since its call resembles the word ‘teacher’ with the emphasis on the first
syllable. There is a sense of irony here as it seems as though this bird has been sent to make us think about our
lives and the passage of time. There is some debate as to whom the bird is supposed to represent. Some argue
that it is Frost himself, urging us to face uncomfortable truths. Others suggest that the bird with its repetitive,
hectoring call, is Frost poking fun at other famous poets of his day, for whom he had little respect.
One could draw parallels between Frost and the bird. Frost created new sounds and rhythms in his poetry and
broke free of traditional conventions. His use of conversational tone and colloquialisms was modern and daring:
so perhaps like the bird, he is willing to say what others will not.
In the fourth line we see how intimately the bird knows the seasons and here comes the first indication that the
best has passed since ‘the leaves are old’. The life and vitality of spring has long since disappeared and by mid-
summer decay is now in full-sight. Already the ‘early petal-fall’ has taken place so the demise is inevitable.
The imagery of the falling leaves in line six ‘When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers’ is still very
beautiful, and could be the poet trying to inject the otherwise gloomy poem with a little gaiety.
Frost uses the weather as a metaphor for death in line seven when he states: ‘On sunny days a moment
overcast;’ which suggests that always, in the back of our minds is the knowledge that one day we will die. And
this bird, with its plain speaking song, knows this and reminds us of this fact.
If Frost was hinting about death before, by line nine he seems to confront it directly:And comes that other fall
we name the fall.
We move away from the fall as a season and on to loftier ruminations on life, namely the fall in the Biblical
sense which refers to Adam and Eve’s transgression in the garden of Eden, and their ensuing loss of innocence.
This thus refers to sin and death. Another bleak image follows in the next line, with reference to ‘highway dust’
which is ‘over all’. The fact that this is a rhyming couplet seems to me to make the image bleaker still. The dust
is everywhere, settling over the beauty of nature, as inescapable as death.
We seem to return to the notion of the bird being omniscient in lines eleven and twelve:
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
This bird stands out from the others; just as Frost is unlike other poets of the day.

The final lines sum up what the poem is leading towards. As we get older, the speaker suggests that we get ‘past
our best’. As creative types, is our best work always behind us, or on a purely human level, as our bodies and
minds fail us, how will we cope as a ‘diminished thing.’ As I said above, it isn’t the chirpiest of poems (pardon
the bird pun).
Essentially, this poem is about dealing with the knowledge that death comes to us all. Life passes quickly and
soon we will all be past our prime and be forced to contemplate our mortality. The poem leaves us wondering
about our place in the world and how we shall move between these phases.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Sometimes we get hungry for alone time like the speaker does in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
Our speaker is in the woods, but (gasp) he's trespassing. He first wonders who owns these woods. In the same
breath, he tells us that he thinks he does know who owns them. The lucky landowner lives in a house in the
village. Phew. So, our speaker won't get into trouble for trespassing, because there's no one to catch him
trespassing.

Surprise! Our speaker has a horse (neigh), and this horse is little. Our speaker psycho-analyzes his little horse
and supposes that said little horse must think it's pretty strange for them to be stopping in the middle of
nowhere, with no one in sight, with not even a farmhouse close by, and absolutely no sign of hay. Newsflash:
the speaker and his little horse are chilling (pun intended) between the woods and a frozen lake. Ice skating?
Nope. Also, it happens to be the darkest evening of the year.

Little Horse is starting to really lose it. Fortunately, he has some harness bells on his back, and he gives them a
little shake in order to get his master's attention. The only other sounds are of a slight wind and of falling snow.
Shhhhhh. It's quiet.

Our speaker admits to having a hankering for the dark woods, but he tells us he's got things to do, people to see
and places to go. He's got a long way to go before he can rest his head on his little pillow, so he had better get
going.

Line 1
Whose woods these are I think I know.
 Our speaker is not the most confident person in the world. This line begins as a question, and we're
totally ready to get on board the question train, but then, halfway through the line, he switches it up.
 He wonders initially who owns "these woods." The word thesemakes us realize that our speaker is
actually near the woods in question.
  Our speaker then tells us he thinks he knows who owns these woods. Notice how he doesn't say he
knows who owns these woods; he says he thinks he knows.
 Why doesn't our speaker say, "I think I know whose woods these are"? What would be lost or gained if
the poem began with that rewritten line?
Line 2
His house is in the village though;
 The speaker thinks he knows the owner of woods, and this owner lives in a house in the village.
Civilization, sweet, sweet civilization!
 This line tells us that there is a village around here somewhere. The word "village" reminds us of
thatched roofs, smoke curling out of little chimneys, and of a few stores and homes clustered around a
single main street; in other words, a village is not the most hoppin' place in the world.
 However, our speaker is relieved that the owner of the woods is in the village – now he doesn't have to
worry about getting caught trespassing on someone else's property.
Line 3
He will not see me stopping here
 Man, this woods-owner guy must be pretty strict if our speaker is so worried about getting caught taking
a breather on his property.
 The speaker is almost trying to calm himself down and reassure himself that the owner "will not see me
stopping here," as though he believes that saying so makes it true. It's similar to the magical phrase, "If I
can't see them, they can't see me," uttered by Haley Joel Osment in the movie Sixth Sense.
 This line also tells us that the speaker has stopped, that he's hanging out at the moment.
Line 4
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
 Our speaker is a total rebel. He's hardcore trespassing so that he can…watch the snow fall?
 Yes, he has stopped in order to take a gander at snow falling on cedars.
Line 5
My little horse must think it queer
 Our speaker is not alone! He has a horse, and this horse is little. Maybe a pony.
 The speaker and his little horse probably spend a lot of time together, because our speaker is totally able
to read the little horse's mind.
 He imagines that his horse is thinking that things are a little strange right now.
Line 6
To stop without a farmhouse near
 Our speaker continues to read his horse's mind, and imagines the horse is thinking something along the
lines of, "Whoa, why are we stopping here? We're in the middle of nowhereville. Where's my dinner? I
don't know about you, but I'm cold. There isn't even a farmhouse close by – what's going on?"
 The fact that our speaker even attempts to figure out what his horse is thinking shows that he's a caring
kind of guy, and that he's aware that stopping in the middle of some snowy woods is kind of a random
thing to do.
Line 7
Between the woods and frozen lake
 Now we get the 411 on just where, exactly, the speaker and his horse have stopped: they are currently
hanging out between the woods and the "frozen lake," so they must be on a little patch of snowy
shoreline with dark trees to one side and a glossy, ice-covered lake to the other.
 It must be really cold if the lake is frozen, and we also are kind of intrigued by the fact that the speaker
is not riding through the woods, but is right beside the woods.
Line 8
The darkest evening of the year.
 Not only is it snowy and wintry, but it's also approaching nighttimetoo.
 Why is this speaker dilly-dallying when the light is dying and the snow is falling? A lot of people in his
place would want to scurry home as fast as is humanly possible.
 Besides sounding ominous and like the preview to a horror movie, "the darkest evening of the year"
makes us think of the winter solstice, which occurs in late December (in the northern hemisphere) each
year when the North Pole is tilted away from the sun (maybe giving Santa a little extra leverage to start
his journey?).
 It also happens to mark the beginning of winter.
 Whatever the case may be, it's dark out and it's getting darker by the minute. We don't think that the
speaker is the kind of guy to pack flashlights.
Line 9
He gives his harness bells a shake
 Even though the speaker can read his little horse's mind, the horse can't talk back.
 So, the next best option is to shake his booty. And by shaking his booty, we mean that he shakes his
harness a little. There are little bells attached to his harness, which give a nice little jingle (think Santa
Claus's sleigh).
Line 10
To ask if there is some mistake.
 Again with the mind reading. Our speaker knows his horse is shaking his bells in order to "ask" his
master if something is awry, is there's a problem.
 It's kind of like the horse is saying, "Hey, is everything OK? We've been standing here staring at nothing
for a little while, and I just wanted to make sure you didn't need me to keep on truckin'. I'm cool with the
standing still thing, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting you."
Line 11
The only other sound's the sweep
 Beyond the harness bells' shaking, the only other sound that the speaker can hear is the "sweep."
 The word "sweep" makes us think of the sound brooms make when they sweep dust into a dustpan.
 At this point, we realize that the speaker is taking inventory of all of the sounds around him. He's
interested in sounds.
Line 12
Of easy wind and downy flake.
 The sweeping noise comes from the slight wind and the softly falling snow.
 Have you ever listened to snow falling? It's very, very quiet. There's just a gentle whirr. Everything is
very, very still.
Line 13
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
 Our speaker finally admits to liking the woods. We knew it all along. He's entranced by the darkness and
deepness of the woods, and he thinks they are lovely.
 Dark and deep woods are awesome in our book, but they also make us feel slightly anxious. There's
something mysterious about the maze-like nature of woods and forests.
 The point, though, is that our speaker digs these woods.
Line 14
But I have promises to keep,
 Our speaker begins this line with the word "but." The word "but" makes us think that the speaker is
contemplating staying in these woods rather than returning to the village to fulfill the promises he's
made.
 These promises may be things like, "I'll be home for dinner, mom," or they may be things like, "Let's get
married," or "I will take care of you."
 Regardless of whether these are big promises or little promises, our speaker flirts momentarily with the
idea of breaking them, before deciding against it.
Line 15
And miles to go before I sleep,
 Rats. Our speaker really is in the middle of nowhere, because he's still got a few miles to go before he
can rest his head on his pillow. He better roll out soon.
 But we feel like we are well acquainted with that feeling of being so far away from where you need to
be that it almost seems easier to just give up and hang out.
Line 16
And miles to go before I sleep.
 OK, so our speaker must really be far from home, because he feels the need to repeat the fact that he's
got miles to go.
 However, when he says the line a second time, we hear the word "sleep" more clearly than when we
heard it in the line before. Maybe that's because "sleep" has the honor of wrapping up the entire poem.
 In any case, this line makes us think of how awesome it will be for our speaker to finally rest his head on
his pillow after such a long trek.
The woods in this poem are something to write home about. Our speaker can't get enough of them, telling us
that "the woods are lovely, dark and deep" (13), as though he were hypnotized. The woods must be all that and
a bag of chips, because our speaker is compelled to stop and stare at them on the freezing, dark winter evening.
There's a mysterious element to these woods as well, and we get the sense that the speaker is not alone, even
though he is very much by himself. Whenever we see woods in literature, we almost automatically see them in
contrast to civilization.
 Lines 1, 4, 7, 13: Some interpret the woods as an extended metaphor for death.
 Line 4: Here we see woods as a clear and crisp image as our speaker describes them filling up with
snow.
Our speaker is digging the natural world. Picture him hanging out with his horse, between a frozen lake and the
edge of the woods, while the snows falls gently all around him. The ideas of the village, of a farmhouse, or of
the promises he must keep are not nearly as appetizing to our speaker as the cold beauty of the world around
him. There's something very lulling about the "easy wind and downy flake" (12), and we get the sense that the
natural world is pretty compelling and pretty good at convincing our speaker to forget about civilization. Nature
is powerful in this poem.
 Lines 6-8: With these lines, we get a crystal clear image of the snowy woods and frozen lake at night.
 Line 11: We can almost hear the sound of the wind in the alliteration of "sound's the sweep."
 Line 13: While the fact that the woods are "lovely, dark and deep" might not seem visually helpful, this
description actually helps us visualize the image of the woods even more clearly.
Alone as alone can be. That's our speaker on this snowy evening. Why then, do we feel like he's not alone? Is it
his little horse that seems to have a mind of its own, is it the landowner who is snug in his cozy house in the
cozy village, or is it the presence of something else entirely?
 Line 2: The "village" can be interpreted as a symbol for society and civilization.
 Line 5: Horses have thoughts? We knew it all along. The horse is personified in this line.
  Line 6: Farmhouses may not be the most hoppin' places in the world, but they do usually involve people.
Because of this, the farmhouse that our speaker mentions seems like a symbol for society and
civilization.
 Line 10: Giving his harness bells a shake, the horse is personified once more as he asks "if there is some
mistake."
 Lines 15-16: "Sleep" is a solitary activity, no? In these lines, "sleep" could be interpreted as a metaphor
for death.
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a lonely poem, for our speaker finds himself far away from any
other human being. He kind of digs this aloneness, however, and is glad that no one is there to watch him. We
get the feeling that he'd rather be all by his lonesome in the freezing cold than back in the village. Nature helps
make things even lonelier, too, for it happens to be freezing cold, snowing, and dark out there.
The speaker in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" makes several choices, many of which his dearly
beloved horse does not agree with. The biggest choice that he wrestles with is whether to return to the warmth
and safety of the village or to stay and watch the woods fill up with snow. Our speaker does seem to have a hard
time making his decision. He ultimately decides to return home, but it seems to take all of his willpower.
We're not going to lie, nature seems pretty darn scary in this poem. Not scary like it's going to throw
thunderbolts at our speaker or let hungry tigers lose on him, but scary in that it is mysterious and even rather
seductive. Our speaker is almost enticed into staying and watching the woods fill up with snow, but if he stays
too long, we've got to believe that he might freeze to death, catch a really bad cold, or forget his way home.
Nature is a beautiful siren in this poem, compelling our speaker to hang out in spite of the dangerous
consequences.
We don't get much information about where our speaker comes from or about the nearby village in this poem,
but we do know that he's far away from civilization. We also know that the man who owns the woods lives in
town in a house. From this little information, we can deduce that if you own things (like the owner of the woods
does), then you live in the midst of society. Our speaker is not so concerned with society. In fact, society to him
is about as appetizing as cod liver oil. He'd rather be alone with nature. To us, the village sounds quaint, cute,
and warm. To our speaker, the village represents his obligations, responsibilities, and promises.

Spring Pools
Robert Frost was very much influenced by the Romantic and Victorian poets who had gone before him. As with
the Romantic poets, Frost sees the natural scene, accurately observed, as the primary poetic subject.Nature is
not described for its own sake but as a thought provoking stimulus for the poet, leading him to more insight or
revelation.
Romantic nature poems, such as ‘Spring Pools’, were usually meditative poems. The landscape was sometimes
personified or imbued with human life as it is in this beautiful lyric. The Romantics subscribed to Wordsworth’s
belief that poets should ‘choose incidents and situations from common life’ and write about them in ‘language
really spoken by men’ who belong to ‘humble and rustic life’. Frost puts many of these principles to good use in
this poem.
Unlike many American poets in the twentieth century, Frost upheld formal poetic values during turbulent and
changing times, when formal practices were widely abandoned. He emphasized the importance of rhyme and
metrical variety, observed traditional forms and developed his technical skills. He could claim without fear of
contradiction that ‘I am one of the notable craftsmen of my time’. His poetry was written so that the rhyming
‘will not seem the tiniest bit strained’.He used terzarima, end-of-line rhymes, and full and half rhyme.
This short lyric poem opens as Spring begins to take hold of the landscape.The forest pools formed by the last
of the melting snows and rain still mirror the cloudy sky.The poet informs us that these pools will not last long
because the roots of the mighty trees in the Vermont forest will very soon greedily soak up these pools in order
to encourage leaf growth. This is a rather unusual and disturbing perspective on Nature – the poet sees an
ominous, dark side to Nature. The trees soak up the Spring pools and within a short period of time, they are
covered in leaves that blot out the flowers on the forest floor and the pools of water which gave them
sustenance.This is symbiosis in reverse and reflects Frost’s unusual perspective on Nature.
Frost demonstrates to us here that he was a keen observer of the natural world.Plants, geographical features and
the seasons have their place in his poetry: the physical world of spring pools, winter snows, the sky, brooks,
Vermont mountains are all part of the rich landscape he describes for us.
However, we must realize that the natural world is rarely described for its own sake or as a background against
which the action of the poem takes place.Instead, nature leads the poet to an insight or revelation. Often a
comparison emerges between the natural scene and the psyche, what Frost called ‘inner and outer weather’. His
descriptions of nature are not sentimental.He describes a world that is bleak, empty and cold.
The imagination enables the poet to see the world in this new way.In brief, intense moments he may enter a
higher, visionary state.This allows him to regenerate his imaginative and creative capability and provides him
with fresh insights and new inspiration for his poetry.This state cannot be sustained for long, however, and he
must return to the real world.
The poet is being very philosophical here and looks at Nature in an unusual way.Yet he is very balanced in his
thinking and this balance is reflected in the structure of the poem. Stanza One describes the coming of Spring in
all its glory.We see his efforts at balance in his use of repetition in the lines,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,

In Stanza Two, Spring gives way to Summer and again Frost shares with us his understanding of the delicate
and finely balanced relationships within nature.He writes of nature with a keen eye and respects her beauty and
her peculiar ways. The poet observes that the ‘trees have it in their pent-up buds / To darken nature and be
summer woods’.He goes on to personify nature adding that the trees should ‘think twice before they use their
powers / to blot out and drink up and sweep away’ the spring pools.It is a very direct poem, a poem with
purpose.
The main theme of this poem is mutability and the transience of time.These are important, weighty concepts in
poetry in general but especially here. This poem, ‘Spring Pools’, sees time as being destructive.For him,
yesterday’s flowers wither, Winter snows melt, spring pools are drained by trees, trees lose their leaves in
Autumn.The unpalatable epiphany for the poet is that Time destroys beauty.
Therefore, we see the imagery in some of Frost’s poems is deceptively simple.There are images from the
natural and the human worlds.Some are every day and ordinary, some are grotesque and macabre.In this poem
the imagery carries the meaning. Frost uses precise details to re-create the color, texture and sounds of the world
within the poem. This makes his poetry richly sensuous.Yet, using the same technique, he can paint a cold,
bleak scene that is chillingly realistic.So, beware: simple poems can be symbolic of ideas that are more
profound!
Nevertheless, in his beloved Vermont countryside, Frost himself tends to work ‘alone’, he walks alone, and
plays alone, being ‘too far from town to learn baseball’. His main concern, it would appear, is not with
community but with the individual identity – of pools, of fences, of apples, and of himself.Through his poems,
we imagine a man who values self-sufficiency and individualism. He chooses the road ‘less travelled’.He can be
seen turning, not outward towards community but inward towards his inner self in such poems as ‘After Apple-
Picking’ where he reflects that ‘I am over-tired / Of the great harvest I myself desired’.His inward quest is also
balanced by his outward journey towards familiar things in nature, giving his verse a reflective and meditative
quality, whether he speaks of himself or of nature.