This is one that exerted a force on me without my quite realizing it. The last lines have remained part of my way of looking at the world, and the story itself often comes to mind. I disagree that there's anything hackneyed about it, unless one reads it with expectations so strong that they obscure what's actually being said. (RF said that he wanted to say things "that almost but don't quite formulate," and this is one of many poems that seem to say something familiar but actually challege what's familiar -- the famously mis-read conclusion of "The Road Not Taken" being a case in point.) There's nothing to suggest that the woman in this poem is a "wild child." In fact, the place she's living is "too wild," among other things. It's important to my reading of the poem that she not be restless or wild, but that she simply give in to an impulse and, having done so, discover that it's easier and easier to go farther and farther. The ties attenuate and finally break, but without her intending for them to do so. The rural setting is pretty much incidental, in my eyes, except perhaps that it allows the presence of those spooky woods.
This is one of many poems of RF's that don't get a lot of attention but deserve it. "The Thatch" is another. But don't get me started.
Richard
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