Frost Poems

One of these tenets reflected in ‘The Tuft of Flowers’ is the human loneliness as the cause of individual’s inability to understand or just accept others’ views and values. The world is so variable in cultures, traditions, values and attitudes that it could hardly find the bond which would unify people. Therefore, loneliness is an inescapable and natural law:

And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

"As all must be," I said within my heart,

"Whether they work together or apart."

The Frost’s genius in ‘The Tuft of Flowers’ is in his ability to represent the definite answer to this question. Although humankind is not able to unify and everybody is alone in nature there is a bond which can reconcile individuals. This bond is the beauty of nature, which speaks the only common language of peace and harmony. Frost uses two symbols of nature: the first one appears in the form of butterfly which awakens the speaker from the ‘questions that have no reply’ and leads his eye to the second symbol – the tuft of flowers left by mower nearby the river. These flowers were not mowed because of their beauty which Frost describes as ‘A leaping tongue of bloom’. Here his values and the mower’s values come together when they both can see the ‘message from the dawn’; and here Frost finds the answer to the universal question of human loneliness. Humane who is able to see and value the natural beauty and has willingness to save it ‘not for us’ but for ‘sheer morning gladness at the brim’, this humane will never be alone in his heart:

"Men work together," I told him from the heart,

"Whether they work together or apart."

Another Frost’s poem ‘Mending Walls’ has considerably more doubts and does not provide any answer to the question given in the poem: ‘What I was walling in or walling out’? The speaker is wondering why people have to keep an old tradition to build the walls among their lands. While in ancient times people had to construct boundaries to protect their lives and families the modern world can hardly demonstrate the necessity of such boundaries. When Frost could not find the answer he forwarded the question to his neighbour who makes him renew the wall every year. His neighbour does not know the answer either and ‘He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.” The Frost’s mention of mythical ‘elves’ gives the idea of walls’ ancient origin which became also mythical for modern times. Paradox is evident: the ancient mythology died because it had not had any evidences in real world, but it still exists in human minds:

[…] I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

The human’s offensive nature makes him protect himself from mythical enemies while this offense makes him bounder himself from other humans. Why should we bounder from each other? Why the ancient memories of offense are so firm in human mind? Although Frost does not give direct answers to these questions he starts discussion which will be able to provide the answer:

He will not go behind his father’s saying

And he likes having thought of it so well

Your neighbours are significantly more important than mythical beliefs of your fathers. Like in ‘The Tuft of Flowers’ Frost encourages people to see the real values of this world.