Some of my recent posts have focused on Robert Frost’s first published poem, “My Butterfly, An Elegy,” along with some butterfly poems by Dickinson which likely inspired him. There were other poems, too, that inspired Frost in the 1890s when he first encountered Dickinson’s works. George Monteiro reported that the youthful Frost “was immediately taken by her, discovering in her poetry the voice of a kindred New England soul.” Frost’s biographer Lawrence Thompson shared that Frost was “fascinated to find that this new author was ‘troubled about many things concerning death,” and he offered a poem by Dickinson that was greatly admired by the young Frost, one that he would have read in the first edition of Poems in 1890, "I reason, earth is short." Additionally, in Robert Frost and the New England Renaissance, Monteiro asserted, “That Frost was influenced by this poem, and particularly by Dickinson’s handling of the theme of death and its aftermath, is evident in his own poem ‘The Birds Do Thus,’ which appeared in the Independent on August 20, 1896.”
From Monteiro:
“When the poems are juxtaposed, Frost’s ‘The Birds Do Thus’ can be read as a reply to Dickinson’s poem. Her anxiety is countered by his whimsy. Whereas she decides plaintively, in her twelve-line, three stanza poem, that ‘earth is short’ (meaning by ‘earth’ the human lifetime, of course) Frost answers that ‘Life’s not so short.’ For Dickinson, ‘anguish is absolute,’ but Frost’s advice is to sleep away ‘the unhappy days.’ Even Frost’s use of the short line coincides with Dickinson’s custom, but there is a difference. While Dickinson moves from two-foot to three-foot lines and back again, Frost stubbornly sticks to the greater regularity of the two-foot line.”
“When the poems are juxtaposed, Frost’s ‘The Birds Do Thus’ can be read as a reply to Dickinson’s poem. Her anxiety is countered by his whimsy. Whereas she decides plaintively, in her twelve-line, three stanza poem, that ‘earth is short’ (meaning by ‘earth’ the human lifetime, of course) Frost answers that ‘Life’s not so short.’ For Dickinson, ‘anguish is absolute,’ but Frost’s advice is to sleep away ‘the unhappy days.’ Even Frost’s use of the short line coincides with Dickinson’s custom, but there is a difference. While Dickinson moves from two-foot to three-foot lines and back again, Frost stubbornly sticks to the greater regularity of the two-foot line.”
Let’s dissect those lines from Monteiro, shall we?
“When the poems are juxtaposed, Frost’s ‘The Birds Do Thus’ can be read as a reply to Dickinson’s poem": True enough, I suppose, but certainly not as close a response, say, as Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” is to Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man.”
By the way, an interesting on the pair of Cyrus-Mars songs is HERE.
| As far as the two poems go, Frost’s trio of staves focus solely on the passage of time and the fact that “Life’s not so short” to doze away any difficulties or dilemmas. Dickinson’s trio, though, progresses through the tribulations of life, the reality of what comes after, and the human-created understanding of some “new equation” in the Great Beyond (Dickinson also addresses the promise of divine stewardship of earthly anguishes in “I shall know why – when Time is over” {at the right}; sardonically, the speaker in the poem states that “Christ will explain each separate anguish / In the fair schoolroom of the sky”). |  |
Back to Monteiro: “Her anxiety is countered by his whimsy.” Yep – it’s her “Absolute anguish” vs. his good nap and (sooner than later) good times. More on this continues below.
Monteiro: “Whereas she decides plaintively, in her twelve-line, three stanza poem, that ‘earth is short’ (meaning by ‘earth’ the human lifetime, of course) Frost answers that ‘Life’s not so short.’ For Dickinson, ‘anguish is absolute,’ but Frost’s advice is to sleep away ‘the unhappy days.’ “ Again, yep.
Coincidentally, another poem by Dickinson I discussed recently (HERE) involved “sleep” – but certainly not the same sort of slumber Frost describes in his poem; no, Dickinson’s “sleep” in "The Heart asks Pleasure first" was more akin to the sleep in Hamlet’s soliloquy as he enters stage left and Polonius and King Claudius withdraw stage right . The princely Dane wonders if, once we have shuffled off this mortal coil, what dreams may come? Dickinson contends, “ I reason, that in Heaven / Somehow, it will be even / Some new Equation, given / But, what of that?”
Yeah, Hamlet – what of that?
I’m all the only one starting to whistle Peggy Lee’s hit, “Is that all there is?” (and note the singer had been sleeping):
And I stood there shivering in my pajamas
And watched the whole world go up in flames
And when it was all over I said to myself
"Is that all there is to a fire?"
Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is
By the way, Frost’s lines “To have you soon / I gave away / Well Satisfied / To give – a day” reminded me of Dickinson’s “If you were coming in the Fall, / I'd brush the Summer by / With half a smile, and half a spurn, / As Housewives do, a Fly.” The complete poem is below.
Yeah, Hamlet – what of that?
I’m all the only one starting to whistle Peggy Lee’s hit, “Is that all there is?” (and note the singer had been sleeping):
And I stood there shivering in my pajamas
And watched the whole world go up in flames
And when it was all over I said to myself
"Is that all there is to a fire?"
Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is
By the way, Frost’s lines “To have you soon / I gave away / Well Satisfied / To give – a day” reminded me of Dickinson’s “If you were coming in the Fall, / I'd brush the Summer by / With half a smile, and half a spurn, / As Housewives do, a Fly.” The complete poem is below.
 | More from Monteiro: “Even Frost’s use of the short line coincides with Dickinson’s custom, but there is a difference. While Dickinson moves from two-foot to three-foot lines and back again, Frost stubbornly sticks to the greater regularity of the two-foot line.” True enough – though I’m surprised Frost didn’t consider a two-syllable word for “unhappy” in his penultimate line to stick to the pattern: The WOEFUL days? The GLOOMY days? The CHEERLESS days? The DISMAL days? #justsaying So what of that? Is that all there is? No matter. Let's break out the booze and have a ball.  |
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