Online E-Learning Task 2 (Lesson 2)

Poems by Robert Frost:

A late walk:
WHEN I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.

In Neglect:
THEY leave us so to the way we took,
As two in whom they were proved mistaken,
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,
With mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look,
And try if we cannot feel forsaken.

Storm Fear:
WHEN the wind works against us in the dark,
And pelts with snow
The lowest chamber window on the east,
And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, T
he beast, 'Come out! Come out!'--
It costs no inward struggle not to go,
Ah, no!
I count our strength,
Two and a child,
Those of us not asleep subdued to mark
How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,--
How drifts are piled,
Dooryard and road ungraded,
Till even the comforting barn grows far away
And my heart owns a doubt
Whether 'tis in us to arise with day
And save ourselves unaided.

Poems taken from the book: A Boy's Will by Robert Frost

Biography of Robert Frost:

Robert Frost was born in San Fransico, California to a journalist and his wife. Despite Robert Frost's later association with rural life, he grew up in a city. In 1894, Robert Frost sold his first poem, " My Butterfly, An Elergy". He then went on to study liberal art in Harvard but had to quit to support his family. Robert Frost's grandfather had purchase a farm in Derry, New Hampshire for the couple, which is where and what inspired Robert Frost to write his poems on rural areas. Frost became a teacher in Pinkerton Academy when his farming failed befrore sailing with his family to Great Britan and then settling down in Beaconsfields (Outside London) where he wrote and published his first book of poetry, A Boy's Will. When World War 1 began, Forst returned to America and bought a farm there, which is probably what inspired him to write more poetry on rural areas.

Taken from www.wikipedia.org

Why I like this poet and a thesis:

Robert Frost once quoted: I'd as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down. In this quote, we can see that Robert Frost has a genuine love for writing poetry, he has written many great pieces of poetry, like " Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening". Robert Frost's poems are mostly related to nature in some way or another, some of them also have hidden meanings, like " Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening" brings out the confliction of a man torn between his desire to explre the woods and his duty to keep his promises. Other than that, Robet Frost's works are also unique as he sees the world from a different perspective, an example is a "Late walk" (Above). Robert Frost seems to see the world from the eyes of an animal who is living in the woods/fields. the example "Late Walk" is from the perspective of a creature who is living in the field, as it is just mowed and the trees trimmed, the creature feels sad and disturbed. Other than poems on nature, Robert Frost also manages to capture the terror and joy of childhood, examples "A Boy's Will", "Storm Fear" and "In Neglect". Robert Frost's childhood poems are easy to visualise and has a unique tinge to it as it really captures the type of fear of the storm or the joy in the child. Other than that, I think Robert Frost is a rather troubled man as most of his poems are rather sad and a bit to the negative side (all 3 poems above are negative). Robert Frost is also a tye of enviromentalist as he brings out the fear of the birds when their field is cut, the sorrow when the trees are bare and the uncomfort of the animals when the flowers are destroyed by humans. Thus he opens us up to the horrors man has caused to our enviroment and makes us feel regretful so that we would not harm our enviroment on purpose again.