[MacArthur]

To the Thawing Wind

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snow-bank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do to-night,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit's crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o'er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.

I knew there was one I liked, and I've been half-heartedly rummaging for about a week...DUH!, begin at the beginning. (It's early in A Boy's Will...and stylistically, would appear to be a very early Frost poem.)

I've always been partial to this one...I'm not sure why-- you have to make allowance for the "O" and "o'er" and "whate'er", and lines 3 and 14 are a tad awkward. I don't get why L15 says "out of door". "Melt it as the ice will go" is an uninspired line. "sticks...crucifix" is too cute, and an irrelevant image. "stall" is a peculiar euphemism for a bedroom. All that, and I still like the poem throughout...go figure?

Let the others look at "The Impulse"...but I feel as if using this ("The Impulse") instead of "The Pasture" would have been stacking the deck.




[This message has been edited by MacArthur (edited May 02, 2001).]