reluctance by robert frost essay

Robert Frost: Poems

By robert frost, robert frost: poems summary and analysis of "reluctance" (1913).

The narrator has traveled throughout the world, across mountains and rivers, and now finds himself on the path back home. His journey has ended, and he is shocked to find the signs of the dead season all around him: crusted snow, dead leaves, withering flowers. He had not expected such a sight when he returned home, and despairingly considers leaving again. However, he refuses to accept the end of the season without fighting for it and ends the poem on a courageous, hopeful note.

This poem is divided into four stanzas of six lines each. The rhyme scheme for each stanza is ABCBDB.

This work is the final poem in Frost’s 1913 book “A Boy’s Will” and serves as a cap on the theme of exile and return that is introduced in the first poem of the book, “Into My Own.” In this first poem, the narrator expresses his determination to turn his back on his own and travel the world in a quest for self-discovery. The narrator declares, “I do not see why I should e’er turn back, / Or those should not set forth upon my track / To overtake me…”

In “Reluctance,” the narrator’s travels have finally led him back home, but he is dismayed to find nothing left for him but the dead leaves of the winter season. Still, he is unwilling to accept such an ending to his adventures and refuses to “yield” or “go with the drift of things” simply because the season proclaims it to be so. His travels may be finished and the season may be ending, but that does not mean that he has to accept the turn of events without anger or emotion.

This poem also has an additional meaning that stems directly from an autobiographical event in Frost’s life. He wrote this poem while he was living with his mother and sister in Lawrence, Massachusetts, before he had convinced his future wife, Elinor, to marry him. After he was firmly rejected by her during a visit to her school in New York, Frost contemplated committing suicide and becoming a part of the “last lone aster” and “dead leaves.” However, Frost eventually found courage and decided not to go “with the drift of things” and accept Elinor’s rejection. Such an admittance of failure would have been “treason” to his heart and his love.

Robert Frost: Poems Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Robert Frost: Poems is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Robert Frost as a poet Symbolisms

This is a really detailed question for this short answer space. Nature is Frost's main motif for symbolism. Frost is intetrested in the cycle of life and death shown through the seasons in a way that people can connect with. There is also the idea...

Relationship between man and woman?

In Frost's poems (particularly after 1914), he focuses on the trouble men and women have within their intimate relationships and examines the reason why many of these relationships have stagnated.

You might want to check out Gradesaver's theme...

Discuss the theme of the poem "The Road Not Taken" written by Robert Frost.

The central theme of "The Road Not Taken" revolves around the significance of human choice. Through its tone, language, and structure, the poem is able to offer multiple understandings of what it means to choose. The first interpretation of choice...

Study Guide for Robert Frost: Poems

Robert Frost: Poems study guide contains a biography of poet Robert Frost, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis of his major poems.

• About Robert Frost: Poems
• Robert Frost: Poems Summary
• "Mending Wall" Video
• Character List

Essays for Robert Frost: Poems

Robert Frost: Poems essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Robert Frost's poems.

• Nature Imagery in the Works of Robert Frost
• Robert Frost in England - A Short Biography
• An Explication of Mending Wall By Robert Frost
• The Most of It
• "Eternal Freshness of the Flawless Poem:" Why Frost's Poetry Remains Vital

Lesson Plan for Robert Frost: Poems

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Robert Frost: Poems
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Robert Frost: Poems Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Robert Frost: Poems

• Introduction
• Awards and recognition
• Legacy and cultural influence

By Robert Frost

  Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow , When others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question ‘Whither?’ Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

Summary of Reluctance

• Popularity of “Reluctance”: The poem ‘Reluctance’ was written by Robert Frost, a great American poet laureate, author, and critic. This poem is interesting and superb composition. It was first published in 1912 and was later included in A Boy’s Will . The main focus of the poem is on a protagonist who has returned home after successfully completing a series of remarkable adventures . To his surprise, the signs of the dead season have altered the stunning view of his hometown. The universal thematic strand in the poem contributed to the writer’s accolades and recognition.
• “Reluctance” As a Representative of Sorrow: This poem is an expression of sorrow. The writer, who has traveled extensively throughout the world, now finds himself on the way back home, experiencing a range of emotions that come with being a traveler. He marks the end of his journey after visiting exciting and beautiful places across the world. His excitement turns into sadness when he finds the signs of winter on his doorstep. His mood is greatly affected by the presence of the dead leaves, the snow that has developed a crust, and the flowers that have lost their vitality, leaving him feeling gloomy and sad. The dull and lifeless plain brings him heartache and sudden shock as he has never expected to encounter a welcome home like this. Although he is aware of the cyclical nature of the world, he persists in his refusal to sit back and wait for the joyous season. Instead, he desires to keep exploring the beautiful world.
• Major Themes in “Reluctance”: The conflict between head and heart, the transient nature of weather, and human emotions are the poem’s central themes. The poem captures and reflects upon the myriad emotions experienced by a traveler who has encountered and embraced the profound treasures of sheer ecstasy. His eyes have witnessed glories and bounties of nature. Yet, when he finds a path back home, his heart gets filled with sadness. The unexpected lifeless winter mocks the way he traces his way back. As an adventurer, he ignores the sorrow this season brings to the earth and goes with the drift of things.

Analysis of Literary Devices Used in Reluctance

literary devices function as mechanisms that writers employ to ensnare readers and decipher the covert messages within their poetic compositions. Robert Frost used various literary devices in the poem. The analysis is as follows.

• Assonance : Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line. For example, the sound of /i/ in “The flowers of the witch hazel wither” and the sound of /e/ in “Was it ever less than a treason”.
• Alliteration : Alliteration means the use of consonant sounds in the initials of the successive words, For example, the sound of /l/ in “The last lone aster is gone” and the sound of /th/ in “those that the oak”.
• Consonance : Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line. For example, the sound of /th/ in “No longer blown hither and thither” and the sound of /k/ in “The heart is still aching to seek”.
• Enjambment : It is defined as a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a line break ; instead, it rolls over to the next line. For example,

“I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended.”

• Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, “I have climbed the hills of view”, “And the dead leaves lie huddled and still” and “And let them go scraping and creeping”.
• Personification : Personification is to give human qualities to inanimate objects . The poet used this device in the second stanza of the poem. For example,

“The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping.”

• Rhetorical Question : A rhetorical question is not asked to receive an answer; it is just posed to make the point clear. Robert Frost posed rhetorical questions at the end of the poem to put emphasize his point. For example, “And bow and accept the end/Of a love or a season?”
• Symbolism : Symbolism is using symbols to signify ideas and qualities, giving them symbolic meanings that are different from literal meanings. “Fields and the woods” stand for happy season whereas, and “dead leaves” symbolize the arrival of winter.

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in Reluctance

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

• End Rhyme : End rhyme is used to make the stanza melodious. Robert Frost used end rhyme in this poem such as “reason/season”, “wended / descended” and “sleeping/creeping”.
• Rhyme Scheme : The poem follows the ABCBDB rhyme scheme , and this pattern continues till the end.
• Sestet : A sestet is a six lined stanza. Here, each stanza is sestet.
• Stanza : A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are three stanzas in this poem, with each comprising six lines.

Quotes to be Used

The following lines from The Reluctance are useful to add when talking about the conservation of nature.

“Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended.”

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Reluctance by Robert Frost: Summary and Analysis

Describing the end of a journey in the Fall, the poet tells us that he completed his journey through the fields and forests, and over the walls. 'Over the walls' and a few other phrases that follow clearly indicate that the poet's mind was occupied with thoughts when he was travelling. He tells us that he has climbed the visible hills and looked at the world with his eyes, and then has come down. He has taken the road leading homeward, and is happy that the journey is now over. Since it is the autumnal season, the dead and dried leaves are lying scattered over the ground. But the oak is holding back some of its leaves to drop them, later on, one by one and to allow them to be carried away by the force of the wind along the earth with a rubbing and disturbing sound. These leaves will be blown over the crust of snow only to disturb the sound sleepers. Continuing the description of the dead leaves, the poet says that they are lying heaped up in a disorderly fashion and are peaceful. They are no more driven from one place to another. The Michaelmas daisy, that was lonely and last in its bloom, is gone. The yellow flowers of the shrub, known as the ‘witch hazel’ are now dried up. The poet's heart is still anxious to seek after the truth, but the feet stop with a big and baffling question `Whither'. The overwhelming question with the poet is whether he should change his heart inclined to search because the feet are tired or because of the physical hindrance. Would, it not be an act or disloyalty for him to kill the conscience? Should he change his heart with the change of material things? Should he surrender it to the control of reason? Should he reconcile himself with the fallen fate of lost love and past summer season? These are some of the fundamental issues the answer of which the poet is seeking after.

The poem is an expression of the poet’s mood of melancholy and isolation. In the words of Lawrence Thompson, "On the first plane of denotation, the stanzas employ visual images which describe the end of a journey, late in the fall. Although the mood of the title is conveyed between the lines, there is no indication of the cause for such a mood." The suspense is kept unto the last line of pointed analogy between the outer sadness over the end of the summer and the inner sadness over the end of a love.

The development of the poem is through melancholy to self-satisfaction. What though the material possessions are over, the charms of Nature are gone, and love can't last long, man is to live through the light, aspiration, and hope. It is the light by which man must live. Of course, the last stanza sums up the "spiritual drift" of Frost.

Towards the close of the poem, a moral is imperative. Frost's emphasis had ever been on impulse rather than on reason. And in this poem the same poetic conception finds an outlet in the last stanza. Reluctance is a six-line stanza, rhyming a-b-c d-b-d, with three-stress lines throughout except for the last-lines in each stanza. The poem presents a fine example to illustrate Frost's gift for running thought easily along a melodic line.

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Robert Frost: Biography

Robert Frost

#1913 #ABoy'sWill #AmericanWriters

Other works by Robert Frost...

A governor it was proclaimed this… When all who would come seeking in… Ancestral memories might come toge… And those of the name Stark gathe… A rock-strewn town where farming h…

A stolen lady was coming on board, But whether stolen from her wedded… Or from her own self against her w… Was not set forth in the lading bi… A stolen lady was all it said.

As I have known them passionate a… The gold for which they leave the… Of lyric is a golden light divine, Never the gold of darkness from a… The spirit plays us strange religi…

She drew back; he was calm: “It is this that had the power.” And he lashed his open palm With the tender-headed flower. He smiled for her to smile,

The buzz—saw snarled and rattled i… And made dust and dropped stove—le… Sweet—scented stuff when the breez… And from there those that lifted e… Five mountain ranges one behind th…

Never have I been glad or sad That there was such a thing as bad… There had to be, I understood, For there to have been any good. It was by having been contrasted

There is a singer everyone has hea… Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood… Who makes the solid tree trunks so… He says that leaves are old and th… Mid-summer is to spring as one to…

Something I saw or thought I saw In the desert at midnight in Utah… Looking out of my lower berth At moonlit sky and moonlit earth. The sky had here and there a star;

All crying, ‘We will go with you,… The foliage follow him, leaf and s… But a sleep oppresses them as they… And they end by bidding them as th… And they end by bidding him stay w…

When the spent sun throws up its r… And goes down burning into the gul… No voice in nature is heard to cry… At what has happened. Birds, at l… It is the change to darkness in th…

Let me be the one To do what is done.

The swinging mill bell changed its… To tolling like the count of fate, And though at that the tardy ran, One failed to make the closing gat… There was a law of God or man

The sound of the closing outside d… You made no sound in the grass wit… As far as you went from the door,… But you had awakened under the mor… The first song-bird that awakened…

Around bend after bend, It was blown woods and no end. I came to but one house I made but the one friend. At the one house a child was out

Oh, give us pleasure in the flower… And give us not to think so far aw… As the uncertain harvest; keep us… All simply in the springing of the… Oh, gives us pleasure in the orcha…

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Robert Frost’s poem “Reluctance” was first published in 1913 in London, as the final poem in his first collection of verse, “A Boy’s Will”. The book’s first US edition would come two years later, in 1915.

A poet and playwright, Frost was published in England before he was published in the US. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, he frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.

External links:

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• Wikipedia page on “Reluctance” Wikipedia icon
• Wikipedia page on Robert Frost Wikipedia icon

Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question “Whither?”

Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

More by Robert Frost

Acquainted with the night.

“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…”

The aim was song

“Before man came to blow it right the wind once blew itself untaught, and did its loudest day and night in any rough place where it caught…”

Fire and ice

“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…”

The road not taken

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could…”

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

“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…”

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Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question “Whither?”

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

The popular poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) received four Pulitzer Prize awards for his work. Often focused on the experiences of rural life, his poems…

• What season is this poem set in? How can you tell?
• What does the title refer to? What or who is reluctant in this poem?
• Frost wrote this poem after his future wife initially rejected his proposal of marriage. Devasted, Frost considered suicide. What images in this poem speak to the idea of depression and suicide?
• “Reluctance” is composed of four stanza-long sentences. The first two sentences end in periods, but the last two sentences end in question marks. How does this shift the mood of the poem?
• “Reluctance” is composed with a number of caesuras (rests or pauses in a line), some marked by punctuation, and others not. These pauses help to mitigate the powerful measure and rhyme scheme of the poem. Where can you hear pauses in the lines? How could these rests impact how the meaning and tone of the poem are conveyed in a recitation?
• Write a poem about something of great emotional significance to you but do not say what it is explicitly. Set the poem at the beginning or end of a season.

Useful Links

Hear Robert Frost read “Reluctance”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXYf8bT9apk

More on Frost’s struggles with depression: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/25/specials/fros...

• Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last long aster is gone; The flowers of the witch-hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

Analysis, meaning and summary of Robert Frost's poem Reluctance

10 comments.

While facing some problems/sufferings/pains , as a human , we had not to take anything to heart and think abt it always . If we hav some bad /ill days in our life, we have definitely something good in future. Indeed instead of thinking about our past, live ur life at present .

Robert Frost’s poems are good.

Life is not permenant. So while living , let’s accept the iOS and downs in life. The poem focusses and delivers a strong message that everyone should have the sense of appreciation and sense of love . In addition to this, no one should give up hope and confident until the last breathe of life / the last drop of the bottom of the bottle. Tank u

i loved the poem

Reluctance of the homebound speaker to end a journey finds reinforcement in that of the noble oak to relinquish leaves. A solitary heart in each denies its losses of love and seasons, suggesting the two are so similar, but triteness says so in only lesser poetry than this. The spirit is willing, or the heart is, to resist both the drift of things and yielding to reason, but the feet betray the weakness of flesh, and demand “Whither?”

The wonderous heart had seen and felt a lot while try to find the meaning in the void that was left after the disappearance of love. The world chosen by the author lead the reader to think that something is wrong and everything hurts .It is love…seen at its sunset descends and ”is ended”: ”And looked at the world, and descended;/i have come by the highway home /And Io it is ended”. The choice of the season is not left to chance ,seems the imagery comes to reinfoce the thoughts of the author through very vivid images :”The leaves are all dead on the ground”,”over the crusted snow”,”scraping and creeping”,”and the dead leaves lie huddled and still,/no longer blown hither and thither”. The snow ,even though is suggesting purity and maybe a new beginning, is crusted which means that everything is frozen starting with nature and ending with the flame of love :”the last aster is gone/ the flowers of the witch-hazel wither”. The pain suffered due to this twilight(”the heart is still aching to seek”)is emphasize by the fact that there seems to be no purpose left ,no tomorrow,no shores to be looking for(”but the feet question’Whither’ ”). It seems that with this loss there comes lack of purpose and desire to fiind a meaningful answer to all this. The poem ends with a rethorical question which comprises a general truth not yet found .It is a question addressed to the Gods or maybe to the human nature which is so mysterious and difficult to comprehend . This last question can be a cry for an answer that will never come , but will hunt the mind of the man/person who finds it difficult to yield in front of reality because the heart of that person will see this acceptance of defeat as a treason even though she cannot change irreversible facts. The message is a simple one which states that no matter the time or the place this state of facts will always be the same ,because man can never bow in front of the evidence and accept that which faith or the Gods has chosen for him. He will always question them and look for an answer and fight against all odds to succeed in preserving this feeling of love that makes him happy. So season may come and go and so may love but the heart of man will always consider it a treason”to bow and accept the end of a love or a season”. It is human hubris that will make man fight and never accept the evidence of facts that everything is mortal and passing in this world and that you can never preserve ,that which is ephemeral but in the same time so beautiful(last stanza*)… The whole poem is an environmental metaphor since the loss of love is compared with the end of autumn and the choice of epiteths helps the author creat a vivd imagery of loss ,lament and grief. Yet the end leaves place for hope because it is the question nature of man that keeps him going.

Read this poem, and the last stanza, when you’re feeling desperate and drawn to give away your ideals or when you feel like you’re losing your love – it doesn’t make things better, but it makes you feel proud of at least not “going with the drift of things”.

Im still amazed at how effectively Robert Frost is able to use environmental metaphors. This poem is very good.

My father used the last stanza of this poem on a notice he sent out when our Golden Retriever, Mick, died of cancer. When I read this I can’t help but think of man’s reluctance to give up a moment in nature.

Maybe the same is true for dogs.

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“Reluctance”

The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

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Out through the fields and the woods    And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view    And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home,    And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground,    Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one    And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow,    When others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,    No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone;    The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek,    But the feet question ‘Whither?’ Ah, when to the heart of man    Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things,    To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end    Of a love or a season?

This poem is in the public domain.

More by this poet

A line-storm song.

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,    The road is forlorn all day,  Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,    And the hoof-prints vanish away.  The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,   Expend their bloom in vain.  Come over the hills and far with me,    And be my love in the rain. 

Not to Keep

They sent him back to her. The letter came Saying... and she could have him. And before She could be sure there was no hidden ill Under the formal writing, he was in her sight— Living.— They gave him back to her alive— How else? They are not known to send the dead— And not disfigured visibly. His face?—

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk, I don’t stand still and look around On all the hills I haven’t hoed, And shout from where I am, What is it? No, not as there is a time to talk. I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground, Blade-end up and five feet tall,

Approach of Winter

The half-stripped trees struck by a wind together, bending all, the leaves flutter drily and refuse to let go or driven like hail stream bitterly out to one side and fall where the salvias, hard carmine,— like no leaf that ever was—

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Reluctance by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods    And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view    And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home,    And lo, it is ended.   The leaves are all dead on the ground,    Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one    And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow,    When others are sleeping.   And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,    No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone;    The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek,    But the feet question ‘Whither?’   Ah, when to the heart of man    Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things,    To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end    Of a love or a season?

More from Robert Frost :

• The Silken Tent
• The Vantage Point
• To the Thawing Wind
• Meeting and Passing
• Nothing Gold Can Stay
• The Line-Gang

Reluctance By Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods    And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view    And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home,    And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground,    Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one    And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow,    When others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,    No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone;    The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek,    But the feet question 'Whither?' Ah, when to the heart of man    Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things,    To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end    Of a love or a season?

PoetryVerse

Robert Frost

Will I have some mo’ dat pie? No, ma’am, thank-ee, dat is–I– Bettah quit daihin’ me. Dat ah pie look sutny good: How ‘d you feel now ef I would? I don’ reckon dat I should; Bettah quit daihin’ me. Look hyeah, I gwine tell de truf, Mine is sholy one sweet toof: Bettah quit daihin’ me. Yass’m, yass’m, dat’s all right, I ‘s done tried to be perlite: But dat pie ‘s a lakly sight, Wha ‘s de use o’ daihin’ me? My, yo’ lips is full an’ red, Don’t I wish you ‘d tu’n yo’ haid? Bettah quit daihin’ me. Dat ain’t faih, now, honey chile, I ‘s gwine lose my sense erwhile Ef you des set daih an’ smile, Bettah quit daihin’ me. Nuffin’ don’ look ha’f so fine Ez dem teef, deah, w’en dey shine: Bettah quit daihin’ me. Now look hyeah, I tells you dis; I ‘ll give up all othah bliss Des to have one little kiss, Bettah quit daihin’ me. Laws, I teks yo’ little han’, Ain’t it tendah? bless de lan’– Bettah quit daihin’ me. I ‘s so lonesome by myse’f, ‘D ain’t no fun in livin’ lef’; Dis hyeah life’s ez dull ez def: Bettah quit daihin’ me. Why n’t you tek yo’ han’ erway? Yass, I ‘ll hol’ it: but I say Bettah quit daihin’ me. Holin’ han’s is sholy fine. Seems lak dat ‘s de weddin’ sign. Wish you ‘d say dat you ‘d be mine;– Dah you been daihin’ me.

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“Reluctance” by Robert Frost

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Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch-hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question ‘Whither?’ Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept and accept the end Of a love or a season?

—Robert Frost

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About Robert Frost

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874. Following the death of his father when Frost was 11, his family moved to Massachusetts. He began writing poetry in high school and went on to study at Dartmouth and Harvard though he did not finish college at either. His first published poem, My Butterfly, appeared in New York’s The Independent in 1894.

Frost worked as a teacher, cobbler, newspaper editor and farmer, ultimately selling his unsuccessful farm and moving to England in 1912 where he published his first collection. He returned to the U.S. in 1915 and by the 1920s had published several collections and had become one of the most popular poets in the country. Deeply rooted in place, his poems often embodied rural New England. He would ultimately win four Pulitzer prizes for his poetry. His best known poems include The Road Not Taken , Mending Wall , and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

He went on to serve as a college professor at various institutions and later was called upon to recite a poem at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. Robert Frost died in 1963.

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Dartmouth honors Robert Frost’s 150th birthday

The college held dramatic readings of the poet’s work, while local middle schoolers recited his poetry..

Dartmouth hosted a series of events to honor famed poet Robert Frost’s 150th birthday, according to English and comparative literature professor Donald Pease. The poet matriculated with the Class of 1896 but left Dartmouth during his first term, according to the Dartmouth Libraries website.

The two-day event series included a Frost poetry reading by actor Gordon Clapp in Baker-Berry Library, recitals by local middle school students in Sanborn Library and a lecture by Rutgers University English department chair Tyler Hoffman ’88 on the politics of Frost’s work. The series took place on March 25 and 26, the latter being Frost’s birthday.

“He won over his lifetime over 40 honorary degrees,” Pease said. “Dartmouth gave him two of those … He’s a Dartmouth fixture.”

More than 120 people attended Clapp’s dramatic reading of “Birches,” “Two Roads,” “Free Verse About Silas” and “Mending Wall” on March 25, according to Pease. Pease said Clapp performed because he is working on a project to “construct a dramatic version of the last years of Robert Frost’s life.” 

English department administrative assistant Carlene Kucharczyk, who watched Clapp’s performance, said it was “wonderful.”

“[Clapp] was just like I imagined Robert Frost,” Kucharczyk said. “You really felt like it was Frost talking to you … It was really lively. I can see why he’s such a renowned actor — he completely inhabited the role.”

According to Pease, the Theta Delta Chi fraternity sponsored Clapp’s event because Frost was a member of the organization during his time at Dartmouth. 

Local seventh grade students from Crossroads Academy performed Frost’s poetry in Sanborn Library on March 25. The event was titled “You Come Too,” named after the collection that Frost put together for children, according to Crossroads Academy teacher Steve Glazer. 

Glazer said he taught a unit on Frost, during which students went to Rauner Library to look at primary sources of Frost’s work. He said the students memorized Frost’s poems and wrote an essay to prepare for the reading.

Glazer added that he wanted his students to study Frost because they have grown up in the place that inspired him. 

“I think, in general, poetry can be seen as inaccessible,” Glazer said. “But Frost is a great American poet who inhabited [the students’ world]. It’s easier to understand when you’re walking through the landscape that inspired him — when his places are your places too.”  

Kucharczyk said she was “very impressed” by the students’ individual and group presentations, some of which were in Spanish and French.

“The students were wonderful,” she said. 

Hoffman gave a talk titled “Robert Frost’s America” on the politics of Frost’s poetry. Hoffman wrote his senior thesis on Frost and is currently working on a book about the poet, Pease said. 

According to Pease, Frost maintained deep connections with Dartmouth after he graduated. He came back to give lectures as part of the Great Issues program, according to the Dartmouth Libraries website. 

Pease added that Dartmouth’s campus remains full of infrastructure that alludes to Frost’s work. The Class of 1961 built a statue of Frost behind Bartlett Tower and commissioned the wall that Frost envisioned in “Mending Wall” last year, Pease said. 

“This man is a Dartmouth legacy,” Pease said. “He’s a Dartmouth treasure. For this event to have been so successful was quite gratifying.” 

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Where Kamala Harris Lives, a Little Known History of Enslavement

The vice president’s official residence is in a quiet Washington enclave once home to 34 enslaved people. Ms. Harris has not spoken of the matter publicly.

By Robert Draper

Reporting from Washington

Three years ago this month, Vice President Kamala Harris moved into her official residence in northwest Washington, a quiet 73-acre enclave where the U.S. Navy keeps an observatory as well as the nation’s master clock. Early in her stay she saw evidence of digging near her house, and after asking around, learned that an archaeological team had recently found part of a foundation of an Italianate villa, known as North View, that had been there more than a century and a half before.

Near the villa, the team had found something else: A brick foundation of a smokehouse used to cure meat. Ms. Harris did not have to be told who had used it. Well before moving to the new residence, the nation’s first Black vice president had been told by aides about the 34 individuals who once lived on the property against their will. A subsequent opinion essay for CQ Roll Call was the first mention of it in the news media.

The names of the enslaved people were recorded in a document of the era. Peter, Mary and Ellen Jenkins. Chapman, Sarah, Henry, Joseph, Louisa, Daniel and Eliza Toyer. Towley, Jane, Resin, Samuel, Judah and Andrew Yates. Kitty, William, Gilbert and Phillip Silas. Susan, Dennis, Ann Maria and William Carroll. Becky, Milly, Margaret and Mortimer Briscoe. Richard Williams. Mary Young. John Thomas. Mary Brown. John Chapman. William Cyrus.

They ranged in age from four months to 65 years, and in skill from winemaking to carpentry. Five of them would go off to the Civil War as Union soldiers. Another would flee at age 13, destination unknown. For those who remained on a property that was known at the time as Pretty Prospects, the abject conditions of their lives are hinted at in documents now preserved at the National Archives.

Mortimer Briscoe, 30, “had one of his toes frost bitten, but is otherwise sound.” John Thomas, 41, “has three fingers on his left hand injured by a corn sheller” but “can drive the carriage and work as well as before.”

Until these enslaved people and roughly 3,000 others in the nation’s capital were emancipated by an act of Congress on April 16, 1862, the 34 inhabitants of Pretty Prospects were the property of a widow, Margaret C. Barber, who lived in the North View villa. Together they constitute a largely unknown chapter in a historic property whose famous resident today believes herself to be descended from an enslaved Jamaican.

After learning about the smokehouse, aides said Ms. Harris asked if any other evidence about the 34 enslaved people had been uncovered. No, she was told. But the discovery, which has now been documented in a new report that will soon be published by the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office, prompted Ms. Harris to do some digging of her own.

Aides said she studied the old map that the archaeological team had consulted, dated 1882, which displayed the exact location of North View and the nearby smokehouse. About a quarter of a mile from where she lives now was a long-gone dwelling referred to as “Negro House,” where the 34 enslaved workers lived.

Ms. Harris then began poring over photographs taken on the property during the past half-century. The subjects were vice presidents, all white males, with their families and guests. The images conveyed nothing about the role Black people played in the history of the nation’s capital, much less on the property itself.

A Widow on a Farm

The history of a slave farm that then became the U.S. Naval Observatory and today the residence of the nation’s first Black vice president has previously been told only in fragments. This account is based on interviews with associates of Ms. Harris. It is also based on information provided by the Naval archaeologist who unearthed the smokehouse, Brian Cleven, and on a trove of historical literature, much of it culled from archives and libraries by the Washington historian Carlton Fletcher.

Ms. Harris has never mentioned the residence’s legacy of slavery in public remarks. Aides said the very idea of moving to such a place only became palatable to her once she was assured that her new home was not the same structure where Ms. Barber’s servants once worked, and that they had been emancipated three decades before it was built.

The Obamas could relate. Michelle Obama, in her speech to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, cited the fact that she lived in the White House as a Black first lady as “the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, intelligent, Black young women — playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.”

C.R. Gibbs, a local historian, said that many tourists are unaware of this chapter in Washington’s history. “What people don’t realize when they come to visit the Smithsonian Museum, the Washington Monument, the Capitol or the White House is that they’re standing on slave-worked land,” he said. “And the same holds true with the vice president’s residence.”

North View was built in the early 1850s for a wealthy Baltimore planter, Cornelius Barber. His wife Margaret was the offspring of a viticulturist, John Adlum, whose vineyard on the banks of Rock Creek drew admirers like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Five of the Barbers’ six children perished from disease, as would the father in 1853, leaving the 43-year-old widow to mind the country estate.

But she had help. The 34 enslaved farmhands and domestic servants under Ms. Barber made her second among the city’s slaveholders. (The first, the tobacco planter George Washington Young, owned 68 people of African descent.) Ms. Barber frequently rented out her men to neighbors who owned farms, tanneries and slaughterhouses. Throughout the 1850s, she netted an annual income of around $1,600, or about $61,000 in today’s currency.

One of Ms. Barber’s female domestic servants, Ellen Jenkins, had been bequeathed to her by her viticulturist father in his will, with the stipulation that Ms. Jenkins would be freed from servitude upon turning 50. But Ms. Barber described Ms. Jenkins in a document as a “good cook” and did not relinquish her servant until the 1862 law emancipated Ms. Jenkins, when she was 60.

Ms. Barber gave up Ms. Jenkins and her other enslaved workers only after hiring a lawyer, who argued to a government committee that the widow was entitled to compensation for her loss. She sought $750 each for them. In the end, Ms. Barber settled for $270 per worker, totaling $9,000, or about $336,500 today. She moved out of the villa, whose grand paintings and chandeliered ballrooms were later defiled by Union soldiers. Ms. Barber died of influenza at age 80 in 1892, around the same time North View was torn down.

A Return of Black History

Today Ms. Harris lives in a white turreted Queen Anne-style three-story building, one with a history more less fraught than that of the villa it replaced.

Built in 1893 for the superintendent of the naval observatory and later the home of the Chief of Naval Operations, in 1974 it was designated by Congress as the vice president’s official residence. Walter F. Mondale moved in with his family three years later, abiding with good cheer the not-yet-updated plumbing. He chortled about it in interviews, and said the family became friends with the plumber. The hot water went out a lot.

At some point during the 1980s, Vice President George H.W. Bush added a horseshoe pit to the property. His successor, Dan Quayle, had a putting green and a swimming pool installed, which later endeared Mr. Quayle to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who along with his wife Jill were fond of taking evening dips there. Vice President Dick Cheney preferred the residence’s hammock, where he oversaw the romping of his Labradors, Jackson and Dave. The Pences contributed a beehive and hosted pumpkin-decorating activities on Halloween.

A notable first came two years ago, when Ms. Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff welcomed a gathering of predominantly Black Washington families to celebrate Juneteenth. In her off-the-record remarks that day, the vice president made a passing reference to the 34 individuals who once lived on the property against their will.

Ms. Harris has sought to reconnect the residence with the Black American experience and to showcase the works of minority artists. Last September she hosted a hip-hop concert on the lawn, dancing with 400 guests to performances by Lil Wayne and Q-Tip. She turned to a Harlem-based designer, Sheila Bridge, to reimagine the interior.

In decorating its walls, Ms. Harris passed on landscape paintings offered to her by the Smithsonian and instead installed art that includes works by the Black photographers Carrie Mae Weems and Roy DeCarava, a painting by the Cherokee artist Kay Walkingstick and a quilt by the women of Gee’s Bend, Ala., who are descended from enslaved cotton pickers.

To date, there are no plans by Ms. Harris to commemorate the 34 Black men and women. Their individual histories have all but vanished. The remains of only two have been accounted for.

One of them, Mary Brown, was about 16 at the time of her emancipation and later worked as a housekeeper in Washington before dying in 1886 at the age of 40. The other was Ellen Jenkins, the cook. Ms. Jenkins became a nurse and lived until she was 80.

Both women were buried in a Black cemetery that is now the site of Walter Pierce Park, two miles east of where Ms. Harris lives today.

Robert Draper is based in Washington and writes about domestic politics. He is the author of several books and has been a journalist for three decades. More about Robert Draper