Frost and the Versanelle
Master of Form
Frost wrote many long poems such as “The Death of the Hired Man,” “The Witch of Coös,” and “The Mountain,” in addition to his lyrics such as “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken.”
Frost was also a master of the short, pithy versanelle, for example, his “The Door in the Dark”
offers a simple scenario of man fumbling in the dark “from room to room” but though he was very careful manages to bump his head “so hard / I had my native simile jarred.” Such a disruption has to be quite serious for a poet.
Another fine example of Frost’s versanelle prowess is his “The Armful,” dramatizing a man losing his balance and dropping his bags of groceries. His “Now Close the Windows” offers an emotional glimpse at losing the natural sounds that had wafted from through the open window.
“The Door in the Dark”
Through first person narrative, the speaker offers a snapshot of his experience stumbling around in the dark, trying to go from one room of his house to another. He “reached out blindly to save [his] face,” but carelessly “neglected” to protect his head with his hands and arms.
Suddenly, “a slim door got in past my guard,” and conked him on his head so hard that it affected his ability to think comparatively. He could no longer match up things and people as he could prior to his cranial wallop. He claims he got his “native simile jarred.” Such a distraction discomfited him and no doubt jarred his confidence in poetry creation for a time.
“The Armful”
Again, the speaker delivers his experience directly in first person. He begins in medias res “stoop[ing] down to seize” a parcel he has dropped, and he says that for every one he retrieves he loses others until there is a “whole pile” of “bottle, buns.” He philosophizes about losing the entire mess of groceries, “all [he has] to hold with—hand and mind / And heart, if need be.”
But he knows despite his failure to keep from dropping his parcels that “[he] will do [his] best.” So he is continues to bend down to try to keep from dropping things, but they fall anyway, and he ends up sitting down in the middle of them. He “had to drop the armful in the road,” where he sits down and attempts to rearrange them in a manner more conducive to carrying.
“Now Close the Windows”
In “Now Close the Windows,” the speaker is giving a command, but it is may be to himself that he is addressing the command: he says, “Now close the windows and hush all the fields.” The speaker bemoans the loss of hearing the natural sounds. He will not hear the trees that will only “silently toss.” He will miss the bird’s singing.
He reports that it will be a while until he can hear those sounds again, but it is time to close the windows, and he has to reconcile himself to merely seeing the things as they move in the wind.
Robert Frost
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