Robert Frost Poems
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, to journalist William Prescott Frost Jr. and Isabelle Moodie. His father descended from Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who had sailed to New Hampshire in 1634 on the Wolfrana, and his mother was a Scottish immigrant.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The poet and critic Randall Jarrell often praised Frost's poetry and wrote "Robert Frost, along with Stevens and Eliot, seems to be the greatest of the American poets of this century. Frost's virtues are extraordinary. No other living poet has written so well about the actions of ordinary men; his wonderful dramatic monologues or dramatic scenes come out of a knowledge of people that few poets have had, and they are written in a verse that uses, sometimes with absolute mastery, the rhythms of actual speech". He also praised "Frost's seriousness and honesty", stating that Frost was particularly skilled at representing a wide range of human experience in his poems.
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a well-known Robert Frost classic that has become a mainstay in English classes throughout the U.S. and beyond. First published in 1923, it quickly became a popular poem to commit to memory and recite due to its short length and mysteriously impactful content."
There is a gentle, slightly mysterious atmosphere created by the second, third, and fourth lines, which suggest that the owner of the woods lives elsewhere, is separate, and won't see the trees passing the narrator observing his woods.
We know from the snow and cold that it is definitely winter, but "darkest" could also be referring to the narrator's emotional state or perception of the undisclosed task at hand.
It takes a creature like a horse, a symbol of intuition, noble grace and sacrifice, to focus the rider's mind on reality. They ought to be moving ahead. There's something about the way the narrator is fixed on the woods that worries the horse—something apart from the cold and the dark.
The final two lines reinforce the reality of this situation. It will be a long time before the narrator disengages with the conscious world.
The major themes of isolation, duty/responsibility and the tranquility of nature in "Stopping by Woods" provide additional avenues through which its meaning can be analyzed.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert FrostTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
"The Road Not Taken" is a narrative poem by Robert Frost, first published in the August 1915 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, and later published as the first poem
in the collection Mountain Interval of 1916. Its central theme is the divergence of paths, both literally and figuratively, although its interpretation is noted
for being complex and potentially divergent.
“The Road Not Taken” Summary:
The speaker, walking through a forest whose leaves have turned yellow in autumn, comes to a fork in the road. The speaker, regretting that he or she is unable to travel by both roads (since he or she is, after all, just one person), stands at the fork in the road for a long time and tries to see where one of the paths leads. However, the speaker can't see very far because the forest is dense and the road is not straight.
The speaker takes the other path, judging it to be just as good a choice as the first, and supposing that it may even be the better option of the two since it is grassy and looks less worn than the other path. However, now that the speaker has actually walked on the second road, he or she thinks that in reality, the two roads must have been more or less equally worn-in.
Reinforcing this statement, the speaker recalls that both roads were covered in leaves, which had not yet been turned black by foot traffic. The speaker exclaims that he or she is in fact just saving the first road, and will travel it at a later date, but then immediately contradicts him or herself with the acknowledgment that, in life, one road tends to lead onward to another, so it's therefore unlikely that he or she will ever actually get a chance to return to that first road.
The speaker imagines him or herself in the distant future, recounting, with a sigh, the story of making the choice of which road to take. Speaking as though looking back on his or her life from the future, the speaker states that he or she was faced with a choice between two roads and chose to take the road that was less traveled, and the consequences of that decision have made all the difference in his or her life.
Fire and Ice
BY ROBERT FROST
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Q. What is the main theme of the poem fire and ice?
Ans: The poem "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost is a metaphor for human perceptions of desires and hatred. The fire symbolizes burning desires, while the ice, on the other hand, describes ice-cold hatred. It describes how we humans will be the end of our own race.
1. What is the meaning behind Fire and Ice by Robert Frost?
Ans: Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice" is told in simple language that masks complex meaning. The poem suggests that the forces of desire and hate (represented by fire and ice, respectively) lead to destruction, and equally so. The poem uses the metaphor of the end of the world to characterize this destruction.
2. What does Fire and Ice symbolize?
Ans: In Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice," fire symbolizes desire, while ice symbolizes hate.
Each of these emotions, the poem's speaker suggests, can be as destructive as literal fire and ice.
3. What do Fire and Ice collectively represent?
In Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice" it is clear that fire and ice are symbols representing desire and hate, respectively.
Both of these concepts are directly mentioned in the lines of the poem. Desire and hate are figured as destructive forces, much like fire and ice.
4. What is Robert Frost saying about human emotions in Fire and Ice?
Ans: Frost's "Fire and Ice" describes fire and ice as apocalyptic, destructive forces. The poem also establishes fire and ice as symbols for the emotions of desire and hate. Like fire and ice, the poem suggests, these emotions can be destructive.
5. What is the moral of the poem Fire and Ice?
Ans: Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice" suggests that destruction is inevitable.
The poem uses forces of literal destruction (fire and ice) to symbolize desire and hate,
which the poetic speaker suggests will likewise lead to destruction -- if not of the world itself, than of the people within it.
Dust of Snow
BY ROBERT FROST
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Summary:
This poem conveys the message that nothing in life is small. Even trivial things can bring positive changes in our life. In addition to this, it also shows that if we take things positively in life, situations do change for the better. Even the small help or good gestures we do for others make large differences.
Q. What is the central idea of Dust of Snow by Robert Frost?
Ans: The central idea of the poem Dust and Snow written by Robert Frost is that one may have the worst day or time of his life, but a little good thing can make it quite amazing. The crow, the hemlock tree, and the dust are some bad signs that normally make people believe that something wrong is going to happen.
Acquainted with the Night
BY ROBERT FROST
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Q. What is the message of acquainted with the night?
Ans: Acquainted with the Night Poem Summary and Analysis | LitCharts
One of Frost's most celebrated poems, "Acquainted with the Night" is an exploration of isolation, sorrow, and despair—emotions that, to the poem's speaker, feel as inescapable as the night itself. These emotions, Frost suggests, are a universal part of the human experience.
The night is a metaphor for darkness, which can be interpreted as sadness, depression, suffering or despair. The narrator is acquainted with these feelings of melancholy because of the loneliness expressed throughout the poem.
1. My November Guest
By Robert Frost
My sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
Ghost House
By Robert Frost
I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls
And the purple-stemmed wild
raspberries grow.
O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about;
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me -
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.
They are tireless folk, but slow and sad -
Through two, close-keeping, are Lass and lad, -
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.