On the Work of Robert Frost

March 2022

This month we asked our writers to reflect on the works of Robert Frost

No Difference

Joseph Carlson
MSMU Class of 2025

Philip Gerber claimed that "For thousands Robert Frost remains the only recent poet worth reading and the only one who matters." The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, seems to have defined a generation of Americans seeking originality. My heterodox opinion on the piece, then, might offend some, and hopefully refresh others. The Road Not Taken is actually not about how the speaker made the correct choice in taking a different road than the rest of men; rather it is about how it made no difference.

The poem is worth its own read and many more, so I will not simply summarize it, and let you read it yourself.

The Paris Review has deemed The Road Not Taken "the most misread poem in America," roughly for the same reason I will articulate now. The first line is as follows: "two roads diverged in a yellow wood." It must be noticed that both paths which he is contemplating going down are in the exact same forest! He admits that both paths are "just as fair." The only difference the entire time was that he took the path that had been less traveled. And contemplating, he remarks:

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.
Both paths, in truth, he says, were trod the same, and both paths, in truth, had not been trod.

The last iconic line is this:

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 piece is perpetually touted as a triumph of self-assertion over the difficulties of life, like unto Frank Sinatra’s line, "I faced it all, and I stood tall, and did it my way." Yet, Frost’s remark that, "somewhere ages and ages hence" he shall have said that his taking the road less traveled had made all the difference, is simply a prediction, not his conviction. He feels that at the end of his life, he shall comfort himself with the same consolation that all men comfort themselves near death, that he at least lived his very own life, that he carved it out for himself, that he did it his way. But the roads were in fact the same. It is true, he took a road no other had traveled. Yet is this not true of all human beings? Who can say that he has lived another man’s life? We all are unique, and that uniqueness has little to do with our making it so. No one is actually capable of controlling how their life will turn out. Even should one be a member of the unlucky few who got to live life exactly as they wanted, with all the extravagancies of self-satisfaction, they still have to pay the debt that all men pay. Though they may console themselves with the ignorant view that they did it all themselves, they still die at the end of it all. And what happens to his accomplishments? In all likelihood, they will be forgotten eventually and will be worth nothing.

This should not be depressing. To point out the meaninglessness of human assertion for its own sake is noble, and necessary, so that we don’t preoccupy ourselves with useless efforts all our days, thinking that they were worth it. Flannery O’Connor, the great American author, devoted much of her career to exactly this idea. She said, "Everybody who has read [my work] thinks I’m a hillbilly nihilist, whereas. . .I’m a hillbilly Thomist."

The nihilist looks at life and says that it is meaningless. The scholastic philosophy of Thomism, on the other hand, while agreeing that it doesn’t exactly make a difference whether you decided how your life turned out or not, it affirms the dignity, the importance of choosing the right thing regardless. It is not about the end product of your life, whether you asserted yourself, conquered suffering, or lived your ideal life. It is about the person you became along the way.

This is not to relegate all of human choice to meaninglessness; in fact, it is to posit that all human choice is imminently meaningful, whether one accomplishes what they wanted or not! The "at least I did it my way" outlook throws the life of the slave in the gutter. It has nothing to do with the consequences of a life lived. Rather, to be as human as possible, to live virtuously, to live only for the good of others, to be interiorly free – this is the goal of life. Frederick Douglas, the great abolitionist, and prolific author, spoke of the moment when his whole interior changed. Essentially, when he began to understand what I am now saying: "However long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact." The form our lives take on can change for so many reasons, many of which are out of our control. We can take any path we’d like; no matter what, we end up at the same place, either being free in the essence of who we are or having only our meaningless accomplishments to boast of. It must be noted that this quote is about a moment Douglas lived four years before he actually was freed from chattel slavery. This interior freedom, therefore, is meant for all human beings, whether they are living the path they chose for themselves or not.

Only Frost knows what he really meant in The Road Not Taken. He doesn’t offer us any solutions, only not to pursue difference for difference’s sake. What I am convinced of, though, is that we still can seek to be the most virtuous we can, no matter where the path of life takes us. That is an interior freedom offered to all human beings, and that makes all the difference.

Read other articles by Joseph Carlson

Launching too soon

Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024

I never climbed trees as a child.

I wanted to – don’t get me wrong. There was an oak tree in the backyard of my old home, and I always dreamed of climbing it: the arching branches extending into thin twigs; the sturdy trunk keeping me stable through wavering winds; the lush green leaves like stars of their own sky. But for some inexplainable reason, I never got around to it. Now that oak tree, along with the rest of my childhood home, belongs to someone else. It only exists as a memory to me.

When reflecting upon Robert Frost’s birthday on March 26th, I chose a poem at random: "Birches." Upon reading the first three lines, I had already felt saddened in some way. Here, the narrator notes that whenever he sees a tree, he hopes that at some point in time, a boy has swung on the wooden branches, has enjoyed the beauty and spontaneity that a tree has to offer, even if it is just a tree. For some reason, the imagery of this poem stuck with me. Frost beautifully strings sentences together to reveal delicate imagery of birch trees "loaded with ice a sunny winter morning after a rain" (6-7). Here, he depicts how birch trees are normally coated in ice from a snowstorm, how we assume these trees are bent and wilted because they are frozen. Frost gets lost in this description before returning to the idea of this boy. He writes, regarding the birch tree branches, "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" (23-27). Reading this imagery of a made-up story about a boy, I couldn’t help but ask the question: Why was the narrator envisioning this? What affinity does he have to the image of a young boy swinging on bent tree branches, rather than the reality that nature has made them that way?

This is because later in the poem, we find out that the narrator used to be one of those boys. He would escape to a world that only a tall and wavering birch tree could provide, a world of arching branches and lush green leaves. The narrator dreams of this childlike experience "when I’m weary of considerations / And life is too much like a pathless wood" (43-44). It is a simple thing, he concludes, to be a climber of tree, to be able to both escape the world and bask in the beauty that the earth holds.

There is one line, however, that truly resonated with me, leaving my heart longing for something I couldn’t describe. When this young boy that the narrator envisions climbs the birch tree, it is said that "He learned all there was / To learn about not launching out too soon" (32-33). One could interpret this literally, arguing that the boy had learned to control climbing the tree, so he did not fall. I, however, imagined a little child swinging back and forth on branches, staring up at the stretch of blue that was the sky, knowing full well that this was youth, that this was ephemeral and would never be lived again.

As a sophomore in college, had I fully launched into adulthood? There surely wasn’t any more opportunity for me to climb the oak tree wildly and freely in the backyard of my old house. I was too busy with six classes, two jobs, and a bunch of extracurriculars. In short, I was spending much of my time preparing for a future when there was not only a wondrous past I could reflect on, but also a beautiful present unraveling before me. Frost’s intentions in this poem are to speculate on the innocence and magic of childhood, but reading it in my college dorm, I couldn’t help but feel anxious – anxious that I never had that experience of climbing on trees, anxious that I felt lost in the mindless rhythm of growing up, anxious that maybe all the birch trees in my life had been weighed down by ice, not by swinging children.

By using this natural imagery and this imaginative story of a little boy, however, Frost reaches beyond the surface to convey that we will always have that spontaneous spirit within us. Even if we are too old to climb on trees, can’t we still look at birches as if another child has swung on the drooping limbs?

Maybe it’s a good thing that my family sold my childhood home. After reading Frost’s poem, I still wish I had climbed that tree, felt the magic of escaping to a world and dangling from arched branches. Although Frost writes about the wonder of a whimsical childhood, he even more conveys how important it is to apply this joyful and loving perspective to the realities of adulthood. Perhaps, as a college sophomore, this is what I need to focus on. Perhaps I can still see birch trees and imagine the branches are bent because a child has swung on them. Perhaps I can climb a tree myself at the ripe age of twenty and see the world through lenses of innocence and wonder, gazing up and watching the patterns of raindrop-shaped leaves shape the sky. As Frost beautifully says, "Earth’s the right place for love / I don’t know where it’s likely to go better" (52-53). Even though our lives may currently seem treacherous, and even though adulthood is discouraging, there is no better place to celebrate love and beauty than in the present itself. I hope we can all pretend that sunrises are canvases of violet and gold painting the sky, pretend that the moon rises because it loves the stars, and pretend that children have swung on the bent branches of birches. After all, there is never such a thing as launching too soon, for it is simply enough if we can launch at all, and do so while preserving our inner child at heart.

Read other articles by Claire Doll

There will be time

Emmy Jansen
MSMU Class of 2023

"October is a fine and dangerous season in America." This is not a Robert Frost quote, but one of Thomas Merton’s from his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain. However, I think it mimics Robert Frost’s poem "October" quite well. Frost centers his poem around how quickly the seasons change, asking the wind to stop blowing the leaves down and to let them fall slowly one by one. Merton shares this sentiment, especially during his college years. October (and autumn itself) brings ambition and excitement as students are inspired by every ounce of the collegiate atmosphere, whether it be classes or a clean notebook waiting to be filled. While Merton sees this restlessness in a more positive light, as it helps him to be dedicated to his studies as a young adult, Frost fears what this restlessness and change may bring.

When I read The Seven Storey Mountain a few years ago, I was immediately struck by this passage (which, albeit is very trivial in the terms of the entire book). Merton put into words this energy that I have felt every autumn, doubly so since starting college. Every change in season brings new energy and each is distinctive in how it feels. I write this on a warm February day, which makes everyone anxious for when spring truly comes around. Spring brings freedom from indoor cocoons and the desire to explore community once again. You cannot tie students down to their textbooks even if you wanted to. I think the change from spring to summer is less obvious, yet suddenly you’re there. Summer is hot and energetic, but the exhaustion from heat also comes from adrenaline and working up a day’s sweat. The change to winter, especially with Christmas starting off the season, is the feeling of love and beauty. We wish for snow, a warm cup of coffee, and a hug from our loved ones. It is introspective, causing you to cherish the things immediately around you that will carry you through the harsh icy months ahead.

But fall is hard to put a finger on. It is not the beginning of the semester, as we’ve already been at school for more than a month. But it almost feels as if it is. Students are enjoying equal amounts of the outdoors, with scenic autumnal hikes, and the academic interior, with very few seats in the library vacant. Whereas spring’s blossoming makes it hard to focus with Mother Nature distracting you through the window, fall propels you into study. It’s hard to put a finger on why that is. With beautiful foliage changing before our eyes, especially with the scenic backdrop of the Mount, shouldn’t we long to be soaking in the few moments of autumnal beauty we get each year?

But in that way, it is dangerous like Merton states. Frost, in the same way, has valid fear for it going too fast. Autumn is restless. I think that is the only way to describe it. We dip into colder temperatures, the leaves begin to change colors, and the wind starts to nip a little when it blows. Then suddenly, the branches are bare, and sidewalks are covered with decomposing leaves without the bright hues we loved temporarily. Perhaps this Fall feeling of sudden change and temporariness is what propels students into academia. We know we are on the verge of something new, such as a semester of courses to broaden our horizons, and we’re excited to get into it. But yet, we know that it will end and change, just as fall will turn to winter. These months of study will disappear into grades and job applications after graduation. Watching my three older siblings grow up, my mom always repeated the mantra, "High school is the greatest four years of your life, but college is the fastest four years of your life." It is true that college is faster paced than I imagined, and I’m not sure if there is anything else with that same hyperactive atmosphere. So, perhaps, Merton is simply noticing the fastest month of the fastest years of a person’s life.

However, Frost sees it too. Instead of relishing in it, he asks the season (and the reader) to slow down. He doesn’t remark the season as being full of new opportunities but of holding inevitable death. In the last quatrain of the poem, he highlights how the change to colder temperatures will bring death to crops, specifically grapes. He asks us to pause, if not for us, for the grapes that are not ready to die. The poem’s meaning mimics Frost’s own life; in a time period where urbanization was up-and-coming, Frost retreated to the countryside, devoted to a pastoral life of beauty and literature. In a similar way, so did Merton, who became a contemplative monk after his fast-paced college experience.

I find it so interesting that Frost and Merton both chose October to signify this season. Somehow, September is too summery, and November is too wintery, and I have to agree with both of them. American Octobers are a uniquely separate month, with restlessness infused in its existence. I cannot help but wonder if it is because it sits between two distinct seasons and makes up its own distinct season itself. Summer and winter are extremes, but fall doesn’t truly belong to either. Yet spring feels like a natural transition into summer, with the world awakening from hibernation. Fall is one rapid change after another with a period in between that we don’t truly get to experience before it disappears again. I wonder if it is this quick death, growth, and subsequent death that gives October its restlessness.

Regardless, October seems to have always been, and will continue to be, a month of high energy, drive, and rapid growth before decay. Frost and Merton recorded this on paper, which I have only pondered about in my head without the right vocabulary. I have to assume that other Americans feel it too and can add to this discussion of the dangerous month of October.

Read other articles by Emmy Jansen

Gold made green

Harry Scherer
MSMU Class of 2022

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Forgive me for succumbing to the temptation that my colleagues overcame, but I think the brevity and power of this short Frost poem allow for its words to mark the pages of our town paper.

As the number of days before commencement slowly shrinks below my threshold for comfort, this poem surely articulates my current perception of the past, the present, and the occasionally anxious tension between the two. These days, my conception of time largely rests on two extremes: beginning and end. For that reason, I’ll only focus on how Frost begins this poem and how he ends it.

Frost implies at the outset that nature’s original position can be thought of only within a framework of the present. He does not say that nature’s original color was gold, but that it’s first green is gold. There are two differences here: first in the realm of identity and second in the realm of temporal position. In this line, gold does not fall within the broad category of 'color,' but within the narrower category of a specific color. Frost is taking advantage here of an American East Coast imagination that raises the color green to one’s mind when one hears the word 'nature.' Gold, then, is not just a color abstractly conceived, but a color from the past in relation to a color in the present.

Frost is not Nietzsche, though, and gold is not dead. Instead of relegating gold to that which existed in the past and must be intentionally remembered in order to maintain its desire for life, gold is, not was, the first green. Gold exists, very tangibly, in and with the green. Their identities are distinct, but the relation between them is intimate and mutually vivifying. One cannot be heard without remembering the other. With his use of the present tense in this line, Frost was so delightfully generous to the nostalgic and to those who hold pleasant memories from the past in their hearts.

The final line is concerning, though. Even though we learned of the relationship that exists between the sacred gold and the profane green, he says that "nothing gold can stay." It seems to me that this line says something more about the nature of the gold itself than anything else. Understood in this way, gold is necessarily temporary. It exists only within the strict confines of time. Some might say that gold, or anything metaphorically referred to as gold, derives its value from its inherent limitations. Gold is not anything to anyone at any time. Instead, it is specific, personal, and fleeting.

At the same time, no matter how many times I read through the poem, I never get the impression that there is something wrong with the temporary life of gold. Frost seems to say that gold is good, but that its goodness rests in its relatively short life. If the presence of gold were not short-lived, then all we would know is the green. This final verse serves as an implicit invocation to gratitude for that which might be experienced for only a short time.

We can also find hope in the dynamic relationship between past and present when we look at the internal structure of the poem. A more sophisticated poetry analyst than I might be able to gather more data for this claim, but it seems to me that this poem in particular can be viewed as a mirror. The first letters of both the first and last lines begin with the letter ‘n’; the first quatrain holds an internal mirror with the second and third lines beginning with "her"; and the second quatrain holds a mirror with the sixth and seventh lines beginning with 'so'. When thought of as a mirror, we could consider the possibility that Frost is conveying truths that imitate one another with the use of different words. The words are not saying the same thing (it’s worth considering whether two words can 'say' the same thing in the first place). Instead, Frost plays with metaphors and word choice to narrow in his perception of reality toward a close proximity with reality itself.

If this poem can be thought of as a mirror, then we should be comforted by the relationship between the first and last lines. Even though nature’s first green is gold, nothing gold can stay. Even though nothing gold can stay, nature’s first green is gold. When these positions are interchanged, I think of the momentary life of gold in relation to and as a manifestation of the eternal life of God. Because we are finite and only God is infinite, that with which we must engage on the natural level must also be finite. In addition, because creation is good and we especially are very good, it must also be the case that finite things can be good, in spite of or even because of their finitude.

For this reason, the gold that we remember and cherish can be thought of as tokens of God’s eternal presence. Even if we get weighed down by our own restrictions and inabilities, we can remember that nature’s first green is gold and that nothing gold can stay. These lines are so precise in their meaning and yet are so distant from a moralistic dogmatism. They’re not written for comfort yet are comforting. They’re not written to disturb yet are disturbing.

As these final months and weeks of college draw to a close, I expect to be drawn back and forth between this comfort and disturbance. In these moments of alternating assurance and questioning, I hope that I and my fellow graduates continue to walk forward on and toward the green while still remembering its close friendship with the gold.

Read other articles by Harry Scherer

Read Past Editions of Four Years at the Mount