Reading and interpretation: “The Onset” by Robert Frost
Reading and interpretation: “The Onset” by Robert Frost
What do a frog and a poet have in common? Ask Robert Frost.
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Transcript
Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.
Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured against maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper’s silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year’s withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.
Robert Bernard Hass: This is a poem where the speaker is reflecting upon the quality of one's life and seeing winter descend and thinking about how his own life has measured up. And there's a certain despondency in the first stanza of this poem.
But as always in Frost poems, whenever you see him inclining toward moments of despair, there's what we call the “Frostian turn.” Through his own willpower, his own quality of mind, he resists those impulses toward despair and depression.
As the poem continues into the second stanza, we see a much more positive outlook beginning to form.
There's this really great line where he says, “It cannot check the peepers silver croak.” Spring peepers are the little hyla frogs that come out in my region with the first warm days of spring. And I think Frost sees this as a metaphor for the poet. The poet will sing. The poet's voice cannot be suppressed in any way.
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.
Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured against maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper’s silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year’s withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.
Robert Bernard Hass: This is a poem where the speaker is reflecting upon the quality of one's life and seeing winter descend and thinking about how his own life has measured up. And there's a certain despondency in the first stanza of this poem.
But as always in Frost poems, whenever you see him inclining toward moments of despair, there's what we call the “Frostian turn.” Through his own willpower, his own quality of mind, he resists those impulses toward despair and depression.
As the poem continues into the second stanza, we see a much more positive outlook beginning to form.
There's this really great line where he says, “It cannot check the peepers silver croak.” Spring peepers are the little hyla frogs that come out in my region with the first warm days of spring. And I think Frost sees this as a metaphor for the poet. The poet will sing. The poet's voice cannot be suppressed in any way.