Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in 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.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Robert Frost's poem Desert Places

24 Comments

  1. ehsan says:

    WOULD YOU HELP ME TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS BASE ON POEM OF “DESERT
    PLACES” BY ROBERT FROST?
    1. Which stanza is most negative? Consider synonyms.
    2. How emotionally powerful is the word “scare”(line 13 and line 16)?
    3. What multiple denotations of the word “benighted” are functional in the
    poem?
    4. How does the etymology of “blanker” add to its force in this context?
    5. What denotations of “spirits”(line7) are relevant here?
    6. Who are “they”(line 13) who can create fear by talking about the
    emptiness of space? fear of what?
    7. What are the “desert places”(line 16) within the speaker that may be
    compared to literal emptiness of space?

  2. Elyse???????? says:

    hehehehehehe!!!! Halarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. Fodao says:

    Poetry is bollocks. It’s some pompous ass who has convinced a bunch of other pompous asses that there are layers upon layers of hidden meaning in some b.s. lines he scribbled down one day while he was on a bender. If you think you have to read something ten times and know how to pick up every little poetic device in order to understand it, then you 1) are fooling yourself and 2) need a hobby, preferably one that involves other people.

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