Poetry of Robert Frost -

Poetry of Robert Frost - Themes of Nature, Lonliness, and Desperation

In the following poems by American poet Robert Frost, namely, "A Servant to Servants," taken from a Boy's Will (1913), "Birches," from Mountain Interval (1916), "Design," from West-Running Brook (1928), and "Directive," from Steeple Bush (1947), one can find many recurring themes, particularly those associated with nature, but with a closer reading, other themes are quite apparent, especially that of loneliness and desperation, two key motifs that Frost utilized in many of his poems in order to bring the reader to an understanding of just how lonely and desperate the natural world and that of man can often be when viewed from certain perspectives.

In "A Servant to Servants," the first four lines express a sense of loneliness via the unknown narrator who says "I didn't make you know how glad I was/to have you come and camp here on our land/I promised myself to get down someday/and see the way you lived..." (p. ). Obviously, the speaker in this poem, possibly a woman, is just too caught up in her own little world to explore her "neighbors" camped on her land, for she has "a houseful of hungry men to feed" (line 5, p. ). The narrator is also desperate for someone to talk to, for she declares that things "would be different if more people came/for then there would be business" (lines 39-40, p. ).

In "Birches," the speaker informs the reader that the birches which "bend to left and right/Across the lines of straighter darker trees" (lines 1-2, p. ) are metaphors for the travails and problems of life. Lines 43 thru 47 ("It's when I'm weary of considerations/and life is too much like a pathless wood/Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs/Broken across it, and one eye is weeping/From a twig's having lashed across it open") serves as a reminder that when the birches are gone, life becomes lonely indeed and causes one to become depressed and desperate. In support of this, the speaker then relates "I'd like to get away from earth awhile/and then come back to it and begin over" (lines 48-49, p. ) which indicates that the speaker is tired of his loneliness and the desperation of life and wishes a fresh start.

In "Design," the speaker equates design with "a dimpled spider, fat and white" (line 1, p. ) which has managed to capture a white moth in its web. For the moth, such a fate is undoubtedly a desperate situation, for he is trapped in the web and cannot escape. A sense of utter loneliness is also apparent, for the moth is all alone within the spider's web, waiting to be devoured.