Describing the philosophical school of existentialism, French novelist and playwright Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) wrote, “[I]n a universe suddenly divested of illusions and of light, man feels an alien, a stranger. . . . This divorce… Read More ›
One of the most famous poems in the English language, The Second Coming is the definitive vision of the Yeatsian apocalypse. It incorporates and intensifies ideas of cyclic creation and destruction already articulated in poems like “The Magi,” “On Woman,”… Read More ›
The Easter Rising of 1916 catalyzed the final phase of the Irish struggle for independence and forced Yeats to recant the stinging assessment of “September 1913” that “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, / It’s with O’Leary in the grave.” In… Read More ›
Snow (1916) The three stood listening to a fresh access Of wind that caught against the house a moment, Gulped snow, and then blew free again—the Coles Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep, Meserve belittled in the great… Read More ›
The speaker moves between two positions: belief and disbelief. He addresses the “Far star” that “tickles” his “sensitive plate” and whose heat is so intense that it can fry black atoms white. He refers to his body as his armor… Read More ›
In this dramatic monologue, a woman “servant” addresses a man who camps on the land she and her husband, Len, own. Several commentators have noted the similarity of the title to “and thou shalt be a servant of servants,” Noah’s… Read More ›
A Serious Step Lightly Taken (1942) Between two burrs on the map Was a hollow-headed snake. The burrs were hills, the snake was a stream, And the hollow7 head was a lake. And the dot in front of a name… Read More ›
The Self-Seeker (1914) “Willis, I didn’t want you here to-day: The lawyer’s coming for the company. I’m going to sell my soul, or, rather, feet. Five hundred dollars for the pair, you know.” “With you the feet have nearly been… Read More ›
“A Roadside Stand” was first published in the June 1936 issue of the Atlantic Monthly before being collected in A Further Range with the subtitle “On Being Put out of Our Misery.” Frost at one time considered the title “Euthanasia”… Read More ›
‘Out, Out—’ (1916) The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain… Read More ›
One More Brevity (1962) I opened the door so my last look Should be taken outside a house and book. Before I gave up seeing and slept, I said I would see how Sirius kept His watchdog eye on what… Read More ›
On a Tree Fallen across the Road (1923) The tree the tempest with a crash of wood Throws down in front of us is not bar Our passage to our journey’s end for good, But just to ask us who… Read More ›
An Old Man’s Winter Night (1916) All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze… Read More ›
November (1942) We saw leaves go to glory, Then almost migratory Go part way down the lane, And then to end the story Get beaten down and pasted In one wild day of rain. We heard ” ‘Tis Over” roaring. A… Read More ›
Not Quite Social (1936) Some of you will be glad I did what I did, And the rest won’t want to punish me too severely For finding a thing to do that though not forbid Yet wasn’t enjoined and wasn’t… Read More ›
Neither Out Far nor In Deep (1936) The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day. As long as it takes to pass A… Read More ›
The Need of Being Versed in Country Things (1923) The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go…. Read More ›
My Butterfly (1913) Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too, And the daft sun-assaulter, he That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead: Save only me (Nor is it sad to thee!) Save only me There is none left… Read More ›
Mowing (1913) There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of… Read More ›
The Mountain (1914), one of several poems that Frost claimed to have written in a single sitting (Cramer, 33), opens with a speaker who has journeyed into nature to explore the mountain. He sleeps for the night, and when he… Read More ›