The next poem on our walk-through is also by Robert Frost. His poems of nature provide not only wonderful imagery to the imagination, but that vital “something more†about the human spirit, those truths that cannot be explained in words, only felt in the heart. This next poem is called “Reluctance,†and it follows the same general format of his last poem. In “Reluctance,†Robert Frost uses the bleak and barren description of late fall and winter to elicit the feeling of almost loneliness inside the reader. And with this feeling of forlorn solitude, he tells in his last stanza a truth about all mankind. I don’t want to spoil the poem for you. We’ll talk more afterward. Reluctance, by Robert Frost:
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question “Whither?”
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Robert Frost
Again, there’s not much else to say. Though his images are beautiful, it’s the “something more†that makes the poem a beautiful work. I hope you caught it in the last stanza. In his solitary trek across the woods, fields, and hills, feeling the bleak loneliness of the whipping winter wind, he learned something true about the heart of man. When is it not a treason against our hearts to settle for good enough – to go with the drift of things, bowing gracefully as something beautiful fades away? It is a beautiful yet solemn question, made all the more powerful by his descriptions of the dim winter world. This is one of my favorite poems of nature. The question he asks in his last stanza is one that we all must answer for ourselves. Will we be the kind of people who go with the drift of things? Or will we be the kind of people who fight for something more?
