DUST OF SNOW BY ROBERT FROST

In the history of literature we can find different famous poets, among them we

can find Robert Frost as a seminal figure of the modernist poetry, one of his

most wonderful and appreciated works is “Dust of the Snow”. This poem has

different elements to analyze in terms of structure and form.

Firstly, this poem is divided into two stanzas each one is a quatrain, the meter

of that poem is iambic diameter, it means that each line of this poem

consisting of two metrical feet and the first syllable is unstressed followed by

a stressed syllable, for example in these lines:

The way/ a crow

Shook down /on me

The dust / of snow

In addition, the rhyme scheme of this poem is ABAB and CDCD, it means

that  for every four lines, the first and third lines will rhyme with each other

and the second and fourth lines will also rhyme with each other, for example:

The way a crow A

Shook down on me B

The dust of snow A

From a hemlock tree B

On the other hand,
 AUTUMN WITHIN BY HENRY WADSWORTH

It is autumn; not without

But within me is the cold.

Youth and spring are all about;

It is I that have grown old.

Birds are darting through the air,

Singing, building without rest;

Life is stirring everywhere,

Save within my lonely breast.

There is silence: the dead leaves

Fall and rustle and are still;

Beats no flail upon the sheaves,

Comes no murmur from the mill.

In poetry we can find different themes like love, death, religion, passion,

historical issues, and others. Also, poetry has been another way to express

feelings and to reflect about life. In that order of ideas, we can find poems like
“Autumn Within” by Henry Wadsworth, this is an example to identify how

poets use poetry as a tool of expression and for that reason we are going to

analyze this poem in terms of structure and form.

Firstly, this poem is divided into three stanzas each one is a quatrain, the meter

of this poem is iambic tetrameter and the rhyme scheme of this poem is

ABAB, CDCD and DEDE it means that for every four lines, the first and third

lines will rhyme with each other and the second and fourth lines will also

rhyme with each other, for example:

It is autumn; not without A

But within me is the cold. B

Youth and spring are all about; A

It is I that have grown old. B

On the other hand, this poem has some different interpretations. One of the

possible interpretations is that the author is melancholic because of his old age

and he compared the end of the spring to the end of his youth it is evident in

these lines:

Youth and spring are all about;

It is I that have grown old.

It could be one interpretation, but if we analyze deeper this poem we can say

that this poem expresses the change of life. For example, in the first part we

can identify that the author made a comparison between the weather stations

and the cycles of life. Also, in the second part the author show us the beauty

about changes through the birds because they move to another side, similar to

the courses that life could has, in some cases those courses could be good and

beautiful and in other cases bad and sad.

Finally, in the last part of the poem we can recognize how the shape of life

change, at the beginning we could see that the author missed his youth, and in

the last part the author just feel the silence of death, in that order of ideas, we

can say that the material life change, the youth and the old age finish; in that

part we just interpreted that life always changes and in that moment life

become spiritual in another shape, for example the death could be another way

to star living. To conclude, the author’s tone is melancholic and nostalgic and

it allows to reflect about life and time.