Tree at My Window by Robert Frost
"Tree at My Window" by Robert Frost is a modern nature poem that presents a unique perspective on the relationship between humans and nature. Set within the confines of a bedroom, the speaker observes a nearby tree from his window, illustrating a contrast to traditional nature poetry that typically celebrates the great outdoors. Instead of venerating nature as a source of wisdom, the speaker acknowledges the shared experiences of hardship between himself and the tree, both metaphorically "tossed" by life's storms. This connection is framed through the lens of "fate," highlighting the differences between their external and internal struggles.
Frost's innovative use of rhyme and meter sets the poem apart, employing an abba rhyme scheme and a mix of rhythmic variations that defy strict metrical expectations. The poem echoes recurring themes in Frost's work related to personal conflict and the search for psychological balance, suggesting that nature can offer companionship and solace rather than lessons. Overall, "Tree at My Window" presents a nuanced exploration of kinship with nature, emphasizing survival and mutual resilience in the face of life's challenges.
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Tree at My Window by Robert Frost
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1928 (collected in West-Running Brook, 1928)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“Tree at My Window” differs from most of Frost’s nature poems in its locale. Instead of being out in the fields or woods, the speaker is looking out his bedroom window at a nearby tree. He closes his window at night, but out of love for the tree he does not draw the curtain. This is an unmistakably modern nature poem. Whereas the transcendentalists of the nineteenth century had regarded nature as profound, the speaker here specifically denies the possibility of the tree speaking wisdom. Instead, he compares the conditions of human and tree. He has seen the tree “taken and tossed” by storm, and if the tree can be imagined as having looked in at him asleep, it has seen him “taken and swept/ and all but lost.” That which brought them together is styled “fate”—but an imaginative fate, because of their respective concerns with “outer” and “inner weather.”
He sees the tree not as an instructor but as a comrade, a fellow sufferer. Between Frost and the transcendentalist faith in nature as a teacher lies a scientific revolution that denies the possibility of “sermons in stones,” and it is clear that the tree is physically, the person only metaphorically, storm-tossed. This metaphor, an old contrivance of poets, remains a potent one when used as freshly as it is here. The speaker’s storm is only a dream, but dreams can be deeply disturbing; psychologists insist that they may be very significant.
“Inner weather” reflects a recurring theme in Frost, who in his personal life had to grapple with the maintenance of psychic balance. Inner doubt and conflict dominate a number of poems from Frost’s middle years including, in his 1928 book West-Running Brook, “Bereft” and “Acquainted with the Night”; “Desert Places,” in his next book, A Further Range, describes personal fear. In “Tree at My Window,” the kinship with nature is even more therapeutic and steadying than it was in the earlier “Birches.” Both tree and man have been “tossed” but survive. Frost would reassert nature’s steadying influence in later poems such as “One Step Backward Taken” and “Take Something Like a Star,” both in the 1947 Steeple Bush.
“Tree at My Window” has a distinctive form. First glance reveals it to be a neat, compact poem which uses the abba rhyme scheme made famous by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his long poem In Memoriam (1850). The first three lines of each quatrain are tetrameter lines, while the last line has either two or three strong beats. The rhythmical variations, however, are quite unusual. Frost once observed that there are only two meters in English, strict iambic and loose iambic. This poem is definitely the latter. Out of the sixteen lines, only two—both short ones—are indisputably regular. Frost worked extra unstressed syllables into most of the lines. Again, Frost found a way to be rhythmically innovative without losing the sense of a traditional poetic structure.
Bibliography
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Galbraith, Astrid. New England as Poetic Landscape: Henry David Thoreau and Robert Frost. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.
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