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There are many reoccurring themes throughout poetry. In Robert Frosts poetry, he uses symbols found in nature to express the meaning of his poems. Robert Frost was not like other poets in his time; he wrote about nature like the Romantics. He did not use free verse like the other poets of his time either. Robert Frost dwelt upon death in a lot of his poetry. He believed that people should make the best of their lives and live life to the fullest.
In his poem Come In, Frost tells the reader that people must resolve all of their conflicts before they die. As in all of Frosts poetry, he uses strong symbols from nature to represent death. As in some of his other poems, he uses the woods and darkness to represent death. He also uses the amount of light and the time of day to represent life and death. The bird, or thrush, in the poem and its music is a symbol for how death calls out to people. By identifying and understanding the symbols in the poem, it is easier to discover the underlying meaning.
Frost uses the woods and darkness to symbolize death. This is a common symbol in many of Frosts other poems. In Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Frost uses the woods to symbolize death as well. In the first line of Come In, the speaker says, As I came to the edge of the woods.
This symbolizes that the speaker is coming near death or feels that he is going to die soon. The woods are so dark that even a bird with dexterous flying skills cannot move to find a better perch. This statement, in lines five through seven, gives the reader a greater sense to how dark it is. In line thirteen, Frost gives even more emphasis to the darkness of the woods when he refers to how the trees look in the darkness as the pillared dark. This suggests that the woods and the dark are one. In the last stanza, the speaker refuses the song of the thrush and decides not go into the woods.
The speaker obviously has some reason to stay alive or something to settle, and that is why he would not go in. Robert Frost uses the time of day and the amount of light to symbolize certain stages in life. This is common in other poetry as well. In many poems, seasons of the year are used to symbolize stages in life. Fall is used as a symbol to represent the aging or dying period of ones life and winter is used to symbolize death. Frost, however, decided to use the time of day to symbolize the different life stages in this poem.
Nighttime and darkness are used to symbolize death. In lines three and four, it states that it is dusk outside of the woods and dark inside. The speaker is getting close to the end of his life just as dusk is the time of day that is getting close to night. In lines nine and ten, the poem says that the light of the sun dies in the west. Again, the reader is told that it is dusk.
The light of the sun symbolizes life, which is the opposite of death. The light of the sun also symbolizes something else. It says that the suns light dies. This is a hint that expresses to the reader that the light is a symbol for the speaker of the poem and that the speaker of the poem is about to die. In line seventeen, the speaker states that he was out for stars. Stars also give off light but they only provide a very vague light.
This suggests that the speaker has something left to do in his life and he is hanging on to that last bit of hope and time to allow him to do it. The birds music is one of the other main symbols that Frost uses in his poem. The thrush music, that is mentioned in line fourteen, represents a beckoning from death. Even though it is too dark to for the bird to move, it can still sing. The music seems to call to the speaker from the darkness and invite him in. He says that it was Almost like a call to come in / To the dark and lament.
It says in line eleven and twelve that the last of the light of the sun Still lived for one song more in the thrush's breast. This conveys a meaning that there was something enticing or somebody waiting for the speaker in death. The thrush can also be looked at as an angel of death. Angels are said to come when a person is about to die. The speaker, however, rejects the call of the angel of death because there are earthly matters he needs to take care of. The speaker realizes in the last two lines of the poem that the bird was not calling him after all.
Perhaps someone close to the speaker died and he is thinking to himself why he was not the one that died. Because the speaker was not called into the woods, he has a chance to resolve any conflicts that he has in his life before it is his turn to die. Robert Frosts powerful nature symbolism using the woods and darkness, time of day, and the thrush's music, allows the reader to grasp and comprehend the meaning he was trying to express. In his poem, Come In, Frost was trying to warn people to resolve all their conflicts and earthly matters before they die.
It is impossible to tell when a person will die, and not everyone will be given extra time like the speaker of the poem. People must not fear death or look forward to death, they must simply live life the best they can and always be ready when the time comes.
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