Robert Frost
This is perhaps, one of the greatest poems ever written by a man who wrote many jewels. The best poetry often contains metaphors and similes, and Robert Frost was a master at using the natural world to describe the human condition. In this wonderful piece, he tells us he will be comparing leaves to flowers, but he also symbolically describes people as trees, and makes some very profound statements. In life we need to first pay attention to the foundations we lay for our children, and then as we grow we need to appreciate the function as well as the form—the inner strength and beauty as well as the public display. While youth is often preoccupied with flowers, and the bark and wood become more important to the mature, as we age, we also find our focus may shift to ferns, and at last to the moss and lichens that will be closest to us after we die. His contrasts are even more important, in my mind, than are his comparisons. Not only do we see the differences here between flower and leaf, but between young and old, between day and night, between dark and light and finally between the externalized struggles and the inner acceptance that comes to light in those final two lines.
In Summary
Robert Frost was a prolific poet, who published over 180 poems during his lifetime. In 1969 Holt, Rinehart and Winston published a volume titled ‘The Poetry Of Robert Frost’ which contained nearly 350 poems, and is still considered by many to be the definitive collection of Frost’s complete works. This list has been a lot of fun to compile, and allowed me the opportunity to revisit some of my favorite works by one of my favorite poets of all time. As I stated at the beginning, this list doesn’t contain his most popular works, nor does it contain any of his longer odes. If you have a favorite that I didn’t include, please be sure and leave a comment below.
A tree’s leaves may be ever so good,
So may its bark, so may its wood;
But unless you put the right thing to its root
It never will show much flower or fruit.
But I may be one who does not care
Ever to have tree bloom or bear.
Leaves for smooth and bark for rough,
Leaves and bark may be tree enough.
Some giant trees have bloom so small
They might as well have none at all.
Late in life I have come on fern.
Now lichens are due to have their turn.
I bade men tell me which in brief,
Which is fairer, flower or leaf.
They did not have the wit to say,
Leaves by night and flowers by day.
Leaves and bark, leaves and bark,
To lean against and hear in the dark.
Petals I may have once pursued.
Leaves are all my darker mood.
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