Seeing how relatively little interest I roused with Robinson and Yeats, I thought the discussion might range more widely if I posted another Frost sonnet, albeit one quite different from "Design." This dates from a second blooming, when Frost was already old...but more of that later. Here is the sonnet.
Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same
He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their voice an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.
|
Threaded Mode
