Come In Explication Essay, Research Paper

Come In by Robert Frost

Robert Frost is a well known American poet often associated with beautiful

scenes from the New England area. However, the deeper meanings of his poems is often

overlooked by their reader, many critics use words such as loneliness, anguish and

frustration to describe some of Frost s famous poems. In the poem Come In , Frost tells

about the change from day to night and makes a parallel statement about stepping over the

edge of life into death. The poem is filled with images of darkness, which becomes a

symbol of death, and music from songbirds, which help to build a chaotic scene. The

speaker seems to have a feeling of anxiety and a certain sense of awe toward the situation

taking place in the poem. These feelings help display the poems overall theme that nature

and life itself has a mysteriousness to it that should not be taken lightly.

In the first stanza the speaker immediately makes reference to the boarder between

light and dark. The edge of the woods is a boarder between the nighttime of the inside

and the light of the outside as the speaker states in lines 3 and 4. The Thrush music (line

2) sets a mysterious scene from the very beginning. The man standing at the edge of the

woods notices the music coming from the woods and it grabs his attention as is evidenced

by the word hark (2). The darkness on the inside of the woods gives the music a sense

of mystery since the man cannot be sure where the music is actually coming from or what

is going on inside the woods. The dusk outside (3) contrasting with the darkness on the

inside paints an eerie image that aids the mysterious nature of this setting. The rhyme used

in lines 2 and 4 draws attention to the two strongest words in the opening stanza, hark

and dark. The word dark is perhaps the most important because it is used so often later

in the poem and has the most meaning upon examination.

The second stanza continues to illustrate the darkness and mystery of the woods.

The woods are said to be Too dark (5), even for a bird to move, this shows an extreme

and eerie darkness which seems to suggest an absence of life. An absence of life

immediately brings connotations of death, which shows the relation between darkness and

death for the first time in the poem. The last line however states that it could still sing,

(8) which contrasts the image previously set and attributes to the mysteriousness that

nature has. In the third stanza death is finally used directly to describe the absence of

light. Total darkness has now taken over the both inside and outside of the woods. The

light is first stated to have died, but it is later said to Still lived for one song more. (11)

The personification displayed here helps to show the connection between nature and life,

and the mystery surrounding the two. It also shows how the light is actually representing

life and death itself. The contradiction stated in this stanza shows how chaotic nature can

be. This disorder and chaos help to convey the feeling of anxiety that the man must

certainly be feeling.

In the fourth stanza the man is finally tempted to go into the darkness of the

woods.. The man can still hear the music in the pillared dark (13) of the woods. The

music is calling the man in the woods, as is metaphorically stated in lines 14-16, Almost

like a call to come in (15). The woods are described as dark and lament (16), which

make them seem lifeless and mysterious. The man finally states his intentions of that night

during the final stanza. The speaker states that he was out for stars, (17) Here the man

is showing his defiance about going into the woods that are symbolizing death. He

decides that he will accept the conditions of his own life and continue to live with nature

under the stars. He indeed respects the woods and all of nature while at the same time

having some wonder and even fear toward what he does not know. This is clearly

showing the tone of awe that the man is feeling.

Robert Frost s poems are filled with primarily simplistic language. This simplistic

language still manages to invoke deep thought into the poems meanings. Frost s

descriptions of the natural world often give beautiful imagery but are also intended to

provoke thought into their symbolic meanings. In the poem Come In, Robert Frost

accomplishes this with his comparison of darkness and death. Using many images Frost

makes the reader aware of the awe and anxiety that he feels towards nature. Frost begins

to understand the power of nature and how it can take your life, he is able to resist the

darkness because he was simply out for the stars: (17).