Robert Frost: Hyla Brook
We Love the Things We Love for What They Are
A beautiful poem in which Robert Frost expresses a deep love for Nature in all its forms.
Run out of Song and Speed
Many of Frost’s poems deal with the changing seasons, and this one is no exception. This time, we begin in summer, with a wistful comment on how the hot June weather has dried up the water from the stream: “By June our brook’s run out of song and speed” (line 1). Notice though that the speaker in no way wishes to disassociate himself from this sad sight: the brook is still referred to as “our”, suggesting pride and ownership. The sibilance in this line re-creates the sound of the flowing water, and hints that the speaker is remembering earlier times, when the brook ran noisily and echoed with the calls of the Hyla breed of frogs, “that shouted in the mist a month ago” (line 4).
The brook is now devoid of life, however. The memory of the frogs is now “like ghost of sleigh-bells” (line 5), as they have disappeared along with the water, which has “gone groping underground” (line 3). The ugly harshness of the alliteration in this line indicates that this is not how the speaker would wish things to be, an idea reinforced by the unattractive image of the river bed tangled with weeds, “weak foliage”, in lines 7-9.
Does the Brook represent Poetic Inspiration?
It has been suggested many times that the brook in this poem represents poetic inspiration, how a poet can at times “run out of song”, and the next lines certainly raise such a possibility:
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat (lines 10-11)
One can easily imagine the faded paper sheet to represent either former poetic glory, now slipping away, or a sheet upon which nothing is written, and the dead leaves stuck together could suggest attempts at writing which have proved unsatisfactory and ended up being thrown into the waste-bin.
True Feelings not Easily Changed
The final lines of the poem emphasise how much the brook has changed through the different seasons, now being almost unrecognisable from its former self: “A brook to none but who remember long” (line 12). However, the speaker is keen to remind us that the brook is still worthy of our admiration, even though its current incarnation is ugly and has robbed us of the Hyla frogs. Its beauty will return again after summer has departed, and those who realise this will know that “We love the things we love for what they are” (line 15).
Thus no matter whether we continue to love a person who has upset us, a poetic talent that refuses to perform on demand, or a natural world that changes its appearance throughout the seasons, a true affection will never be easily removed.
Further discussion of Frost's poems including Road Not Taken, Dust of Snow , Putting in the Seed, Nothing Gold Can Stay, and Stopping by Woods.
