Robert Frost Winter Poems

Listen!
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued

Listen!
Poems can be interpreted in such different ways; I may take the minority view on this one. I first read "Wind and Window Flower" as almost literal -- a bit of "horticultural melodrama" I termed it. I have since seen interpretations that have the wind and window flower standing for human lovers.

I keep coming back to my original read, though, of a playful, personified look at the winter season. Part of the reason is the general tone of the poem: melodramatic but playful. Another is the opening lines, "Lovers, forget your love, and list to the love of these..." If it was about a boy and a girl from different walks of life, why should we forget our own loves to listen, awe-struck, to the tale? That tale is already around us everywhere, in pop culture as well as life. Indeed, many readers will recognize elements of the tale in their own life. But a tale of love between, literally, a wind and a flower? Now that is different, and might indeed our rivet attention if we will suspend for a moment our disbelief...

Listen!

When I see birches bend to the left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them...

Listen!
The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight...

This poem is as much about what the narrator doesn't see as what he does. The opening lines give us a dismal, if slightly humorous, portrait of winter. Frost builds up the sense of wonder at this supposed bird and allows up to feel a bit of that disappointment that, no, it's not a bird after all. It appears that Frost is not just looking for, but longing for, that bird. All in all, it's a clever -- and indirect -- expression of Frost's attitude toward the seasons.

Listen!

Here we find an idyllic winter scene in perhaps a surprising locale.

A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp...