Reading Robert Frost(6)

(photo) blue morning glories, in Matsudo, Chiba prefecture, Japan



Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in the snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it-it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less-
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars-on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.



I think the key word of this poem is snow. Frost sees it as something negative. The snow makes him feel lonely and think it has no expression and nothing to express. The snow triggers him to imagine the empty spaces between stars and reminds him of his desert places in his mind. This poem is so dark. But I think Frost had a courage to listen to himself truthfully.