Mountain Interval by Robert Frost

Source of book: I own this.

It was definitely time to read some Frost, who remains my favorite poet. What can I say? I’m a bit of a traditionalist, with a love for nature, and he speaks to me.

I own the complete Frost, a gift from my wife long ago. (I honestly cannot remember if it was before we married, or just after.) This is his third collection. You can read my thoughts on A Boy’s Will and North of Boston if you like.

Mountain Interval has a surprising number of dark poems in it. I have found that many people familiar only with Frost from their American Literature classes in high school or college tend to know only his “happier” or merely melancholy poems, and not the ones with a real edge. This is too bad, as it has meant Frost has a reputation as being pleasant but not deep. This is a huge mistake, in my opinion. Frost has a wide emotional range, and some of his most psychologically devastating poems are the dark ones. A good case in point in this collection is the long blank verse narrative “The Bonfire,” or the multi-part poem “The Hill Wife.” But there is so much more treasure to be found here.

The collection opens with “The Road Not Taken,” rightfully one of Frost’s best known poems, and one of my all time favorites. It has that characteristic melancholy feel, and a meaning which is both apparent on the surface, and deeper if you think it through.

   

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

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.

I’ll also note that this is a great example of Frost’s use of a five line stanza.

Another poem in this collection is “Christmas Trees,” which I used for one of my Christmas posts.

I also should mention “In the Home Stretch,” another narrative poem in blank verse. It is obviously too long to quote, but it tells of a young(ish) couple moving into a home in the mountains on some land. As they settle in, they have an intriguing philosophical conversation about beginnings and endings and their complex relationship.

Another poem I loved, also about a relationship of sorts, is “Meeting and Passing.”

Meeting and Passing

As I went down the hill along the wall

There was a gate I had leaned at for the view

And had just turned from when I first saw you

As you came up the hill. We met. But all

We did that day was mingle great and small

Footprints in summer dust as if we drew

The figure of our being less than two

But more than one as yet. Your parasol

Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.

And all the time we talked you seemed to see

Something down there to smile at in the dust.

(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)

Afterward I went past what you had passed

Before we met, and you what I had passed.

I have mentioned a few times how much I love the sonnet form. This is a good one, in the Italian form. I also love the way Frost understands introversion - that bit about smiling at the dust - but don’t take that to mean she disliked me - is great.

Another poem that I really loved is this one:

Hyla Brook

BY June our brook’s run out of song and speed.

Sought for much after that, it will be found

Either to have gone groping underground

(And taken with it all the Hyla breed

That shouted in the mist a month ago,

Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)—

Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,

Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent

Even against the way its waters went.

Its bed is left a faded paper sheet

Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat—

A brook to none but who remember long.

This as it will be seen is other far

Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.

We love the things we love for what they are.

That last line is outstanding, as is the picture of the seasonal stream, so well known to us in the western part of the country.

While “Hyla Brook” is close to a sonnet, it has one extra line, and isn’t quite in the right form. The next one is a true sonnet, again in the Italian (rather than English) pattern. The rhyme scheme of the final six lines differs from “Meeting and Passing.” I like this one for its attention to small, seemingly insignificant details within a larger story which is only obliquely alluded to.

Range-Finding

The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung

And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest

Before it stained a single human breast.

The stricken flower bent double and so hung.

And still the bird revisited her young.

A butterfly its fall had dispossessed

A moment sought in air his flower of rest,

Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.

On the bare upland pasture there had spread

O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread

And straining cables wet with silver dew.

A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.

The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,

But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

The battle referred to is probably one from World War I - a counterpart to “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.

Two more poems deserve mention. The first is this one, which really speaks to me. There are two sounds I could listen to all day: the sound of the surf, and the wind in the trees.

The Sound of Trees

I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace,

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks no less for knowing,

As it grows wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway,

From the window or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.

Just a brilliant and delightful poem.

I’ll end with one of my all time favorite Frost poems. Every time I read it again - aloud, of course - I am thrilled with the melody of the words, and with the subversive themes. Enjoy.

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. 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,

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.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

There isn’t anything that needs to be said beyond that.

I could mention a number of other fine poems, both shorter and longer. I highly recommend Frost, and particularly recommend reading an entire collection as a unit, as the poems are often related and build on each other. And, as always, read them out loud! Poetry is meant to be heard, and the music of the sounds is part of the thrill.

North of Boston by Robert Frost

Source of book: I own the complete Robert Frost - a gift from a very special woman.

As part of my systematic reading of my poetry collection, I am reading through my favorite poet, Robert Frost, in chronological order. I previously reviewed A Boy’s Will. This is his second collection, North of Boston.

The two make for an interesting contrast. A Boy’s Will consists entirely of short poems, most with a stanza form and regular rhyme. North of Boston, with one exception, is entirely narrative poems in blank verse.

(Frost was particularly touchy about the confusion between free verse and blank verse. Free verse lacks both meter and rhyme. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter - the choice of Milton and Shakespeare and many others.)

North of Boston focuses on human interaction, particularly conversations. The poems tell stories, with twists and turns often reserved for the end. Despite the formal constraints of the poetry, the characters come alive through their words. Even laconic dialogue reveals the characters of Frost’s beloved New England.

I was struck again by the similarities with the short stories and sketches of Sarah Orne Jewett, who also lived in and wrote about the rural New England countryside and small towns. Both writers capture the essence of the cold winters, and hard scrabble existence, the lines of care etched on the faces as they draw out the deeply human and sympathetic qualities of their characters.

Here are a few that I particularly liked.

“The Mending Wall”

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

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.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows?

But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

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. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

I spent a portion of my teen years building rock retaining walls, both for and with my family, and also to earn some money from neighbors. Even a well built wall tends to need regular repairs, so this was completely familiar. I also understand his neighbor’s point of view. If this is taken beyond the literal sense - and I believe Frost intends it that way - it speaks to the importance of boundaries, even between good friends who have nothing to fear from each other. That certain degree of separation creates a level of comfort. Perhaps this is particularly so for those of us who are introverts.

I was also reminded again of how good “The Death of the Hired Man” is. Within the space of six scant pages - 175 lines - Frost creates three memorable characters: Warren and Mary, the married couple whose dialogue forms most of the poem; and Silas, the old hired man, who comes “home” to die.

   

"Home," he mocked gently.  
 
"Yes, what else but home?  
It all depends on what you mean by home.  
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more  
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us             
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."  
 
"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,  
They have to take you in."  
 
"I should have called it  
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve."   

I loved this when I first read it in High School, and still love it now, when I have more reason to understand its truth. I also loved the description of Silas’ ordinariness - his utter lack of distinction.

“Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,  
And nothing to look backward to with pride,  
And nothing to look forward to with hope,  
So now and never any different."    

Another poem I particularly loved from this collection was “The Mountain,” which recalled Jewett’s marvelous sketch, “An October Ride.” The wilderness, and mountains in particular, have a special place in my heart, and Frost’s description of the trail up the mountain as described by a local man reveals Frost to share the same sense of adventure. I love the opening lines:

The mountain held the town as in a shadow

I saw so much before I slept there once:

I noticed that I missed stars in the west,

Where its black body cut into the sky.

Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall

Behind which I was sheltered from a wind.

The rest is too long to quote, but is well worth reading. I would also recommend “Home Burial” for its lacerating portrayal of the different styles of mourning displayed by a husband and wife after the early death of their child.

Great lines abound in these poems, ones that stick with the reader. From “The Code,” for example:

The hand that knows his business won’t be told

To do work better or faster - those two things.

Apparently, this truth has been lost on lousy managers everywhere.

Or this one from “The Housekeeper,” which tells of an illicit relationship gone bad.

I tell them they can’t get me through the door, though:

I’ve been built here like a big church organ.

I’ll end with a shorter poem, though still in blank verse, which blends the narrative form with the compact incident and thought of Frost’s previous collection.

“The Wood-Pile”

Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,

I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.

No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.'

The hard snow held me, save where now and then

One foot went through. The view was all in lines

Straight up and down of tall slim trees

Too much alike to mark or name a place by

So as to say for certain I was here

Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.

A small bird flew before me. He was careful

To put a tree between us when he lighted,

And say no word to tell me who he was

Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.

He thought that I was after him for a feather—

The white one in his tail; like one who takes

Everything said as personal to himself.

One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.

And then there was a pile of wood for which

I forgot him and let his little fear

Carry him off the way I might have gone,

Without so much as wishing him good-night.

He went behind it to make his last stand.

It was a cord of maple, cut and split

And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.

And not another like it could I see.

No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.

And it was older sure than this year's cutting,

Or even last year's or the year's before.

The wood was gray and the bark warping off it

And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis

Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.

What held it though on one side was a tree

Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,

These latter about to fall. I thought that only

Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks

Could so forget his handiwork on which

He spent himself, the labor of his ax,

And leave it there far from a useful fireplace

To warm the frozen swamp as best it could

With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

Whether it is the self-absorption of the bird, the twisting clematis vine, or the hard work of splitting a whole cord of wood, Frost’s language brings a picture to life. I was reminded again of the way that the best writing is often the most transparent. Frost’s language feels so simple and natural - deceptively so. However, a close reading reveals just how much thought is packed into each line, each word. The seeming clarity of his verse conceals a delicious ambiguity and complexity waiting for the reader to discover. Frost may have been an early infatuation once, but I find I never tire of reading even as I age.