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.
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.
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?
WOULD YOU HELP ME TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS BASE ON POEM OF “DESERT PLACES” BY ROBERT FROST?
1) The world of men needs the lover and the lover needs the world. He thrives, symbolized by the rising sun, on life and he needs the world to thrive off of.
2) The sea appears to come around the cape as the sunlight hits the water. This could symbolize how humanity needs him and is coming to him guided by the sun. He mentions the effect before the cause to give more imagery and to provide a slight hook.
ok the poem looks iambic to me and I would guess on a pentameter. except for that we have four stanzas with a rhyme scheme of aaba,ccbc,ddbd,eebe. the whole thing has a song like quality- see the repetitions. the exterior solitude is compared to the speakers inner solitude and so on. too sleepy to continue, maybe if someone begs for it…
I’m just saying the poem makes me sleepy…..
haha. i love that first comment.
i am writing a five page response to this poem,and im just b.s.ing my way through it.
this poem sucks
it has a message: the message is to honor i tin your own soul and feel the despair he felt.
it is not ment to be put into any other words than those that frost used.
if you can’t understand his message ur on crack i swear.
and i hate all english teachers that think that explicating a poem helps us understand it, when the author intended their writing to be enjoyed and interperated according to the listener, and enjyed.
not picked apart.
screw english courses.
i seriously hate alllllllll of robert frosts poems!
ive been trying to research poems so i can do my essay on them and all i got was jack shit from u guys!
for real tho how can u guys even cum up with any meanings of any poem let alone robert’s poems of absolute shit!
anyway thanx for the help guys….NOT!
i guess im gna go and fail my essay!
This poem has twenty verses and 4 stanzas. It rhymes which are a: fast, past, and last, c: theirs, lairs, and unawares, e: loneliness, less, and express, and f: spaces and places. He also use alliteration such as “Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast:. His tone towards this poem is sadness, loneliness, and quiet.
this is so magical i love it
i think that we can feel the magic of this poem in the last line!!!!!
in this poem the author uses ‘desert’ as a metaphor for lonliness. he trying to say that in his world he has nobody to share it with. he is comparing his life to a desert.
You are so funny Ritvik,
i read your whole massage to get some thing about the peom, but you have written nothing. i am wondering what made you change in doing some thing else for the rest of your life.
You might never get achance to read these but you are waiting forever, interesting
ppl… guess what.. I wanted to read this poem but soon i found out that the poem is not that interesting as the comments u guys wrote.. hehehe… and the marijuana one.. god.. i was laughing like hell.. and specially when that person says.. if i didn’t get laid.. i will hit the monkey… gosh it made me crazy…hehehe.. ok bye.. have a good one guys…. now after this messege.. i might be doing something else for the rest of my life and might never get chance to read these again… well it just made my day for today.. damn… i m gonna miss this.. isn’t it weird… that a person from a different country can be so near sometime and read ur messeges.. unbelievable.. and yeah… lets hope.. some1 ..some where will read these messeges.. and might try to get back to me… waiting rightnow.. will wait for ever… just to let u guys know… desting might be not that important to some1 among u.. but guys belive me.. i really is a main purpose of life… shit.. i wrote so much.. i think i should .. would.. could have wrote my english essay instead,,,,, have a good one.. love..Ritvik Singh…
I cannot take anything away from ‘a-bomb’. But starting from zero, I will say this…
Frost is expressing the thought that although the depths of winter are bleak, bleaker still are the depths of loneliness and isolation within the human heart.
The poem has wonderful meaning, as I was smoking marijuana i began to feel the real meaning of the poem, I’m such a pothead. OH yeah, i got my dog high this afternoon. well anyways, the poem is so sad, as sad as robert frosty. Well, I have to go smoke some more weed and hopefully get laid, if not i’ll just slap the monkey.
I believe he’s expressing everyone’s loneliness or dark side of their mind. It may be tucked away, and covered up, but it is still there.< And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,/But a few weeds and stubble showing last. > And he is trying not to notice it as much as possible. But no matter how hard he tries it will only get worse< Will be more lonely ere it will be less > and nobody can tell because he hides it from everyone. And he is scared of it. He refers to it as desert places because it is dry and barren of any emotion, such as a desert is to water and life.
I don’t know, just a thought I guess…
(Ps Robert Frost is Amazing. One of my personal favorites) =)
i don’t like it…robert is bad
I think the poem highlights the theme of loneliness and isolation that strikes the persona.
Yes, we all have our desert places, but are “They,” who try to “scare” us?
The last two lines of the poem, I believe are the epigram of the poem. Each one of us have our own personal desert!!