Poetry Analysis; “October” by Robert Frost

Here is this lovely, relatively well-known poem from Robert Frost, “October,” perfect for this month of foliage.  First the poem, and I’ve included line numbers and segmented the poem into sections with lines.  I’ve also listed the rhyme scheme over to the right.

 

October

By Robert Frost

 

1 O hushed October morning mild,                            A

2 Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;                         B

3 Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,                               A

4 Should waste them all.                                             B

5 The crows above the forest call;                              B

6 Tomorrow they may form and go.                           C

7 O hushed October morning mild,                            A

8 Begin the hours of this day slow.                            C

9 Make the day seem to us less brief.                         D

10 Hearts not averse to being beguiled,                      A        

11 Beguile us in the way you know.                           C

12 Release one leaf at break of day;                           E

13 At noon release another leaf;                                 D

14 One from our trees, one far away.                         E

15 Retard the sun with gentle mist;                            F

16 Enchant the land with amethyst.                           F

17 Slow, slow!                                                            C

18 For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,                    B        

19 Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,            G                    

20 Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—             G        

21 For the grapes’ sake along the wall.                       B        

 

 

There is no mysterious theme to the poem.  It is what it seems, first and primary a meditation on the beautiful October foliage: “Enchant the land with amenthyst” (l. 16). One subtle theme is the slow movement of time, and the ever coming death that the change symbolizes: “Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild/Should waste them all” (3-4).  The poem is so static, it feels like a picture, but there is subtle movement.  The crows come and go (5-6) and the leaves fall ever so sporadically and one at a time over the course of a morning (12-24).  But the time is ever creeping slow: “Slow, slow!/For the grapes’ sake, if they were all” (17-18). 

What really intrigued me though was the form of the poem.  Does it have form?  It feels like it does.  The first quatrain (lines 1-4) has an ABAB rhyme scheme.  That anticipates form.  But the second quatrain (5-8) has a BCAC rhyme scheme, which does not follow the first quatrain.  The B rhyme harkens back to the first quatrain; a third rhyme, “C,” is introduced, and quatrain closes with to the very first “A” rhyme.  That does interlock, however asymmetrically. 

But what about the next quatrain?  If there were a third quatrain, the rhyme scheme would be DACE, which would not be a quatrain.  In fact, the syntax has it that a full period ends after three lines, and the following three lines is also a complete sentence.  Two three line groupings of a developed thought forms a sestet, six lines with an interlocking rhyme scheme.  If those six lines were a sestet, it would have the rhyme scheme of DACEDE.  The A and C echo back to the preceding two quatrains, the D and the E introduces new rhymes and interlock within the sestet with two E’s toward the end progressing the poem forward.  Again asymmetrical but the result is a static feel while moving the poem slowly forward. 

But wait, isn’t two quatrains followed by a sestet an Italian sonnet?  Yes, but a sonnet requires an iambic pentameter line, that is, ten syllables which consist of five two-syllable feet.  But all the poem’s lines are iambic tetrameter (eight syllables of four two-syllable feet) with two notable exceptions.  I’ll get to the exceptions in a bit.  So the first fourteen lines approximate a sonnet but it’s definitely not a sonnet.  

The following two lines (15-16) is a pure couplet of FF with no echo of the F rhyme anywhere else in the poem.  They don’t echo back and they don’t return.  The 17^th line is made up of two single-syllable words, “Slow, slow.”  Actually it’s one single-syllable word repeated.  And finally the last four lines return to a quatrain, only this time it is not an asymmetrical quatrain but a very symmetrical BGGB.  The internal rhyme of GG also does not echo anywhere else in the poem but the B sound which frames the quatrain harkens back to the first quatrain, which I think remarkably ties the poem together.

So what about the two non-conforming lines?  Line four is a four syllable iambic line (diameter), which is half the poem’s tetrameter lines.  To have just one diameter line in the midst of the tetrameter scheme is very odd, and again asymmetrical.  Because of its curtness, the line gives extra power to the death motif, “Should waste them all.”  The other non-conforming, “slow, slow,” isn’t even iambic.  It’s a spondee, two stressed syllables, and it gives extra power to the creeping temporal movement of the poem, reflecting the slow falling of the leaves.

Other observations I would like to point out.  (1) Lines one and seven repeat.  (2) All line ending words are single syllable except for amethyst.  (3) One word that ends a line is “frost,” the poet’s last name.  I’m not sure what to make of that last observation, but it is curious. 

So what are we to make of all this?  Opening asymmetrical quatrains but a closing symmetrical quatrain.  An asymmetrical sestet which with the quatrains ahead of it echoes an Italian sonnet, but a sonnet of improper line length.  Two lines that don’t follow the metrical scheme surrounded by 19 lines that do.  It is a poem that gives the appearance of fixed form but is highly non-conforming and, to repeat what I think is the most important observation of the poem’s form, asymmetrical. 

Here is what I think it means.  The asymmetrical form reflects the subject.  If you look at a wooded area in autumn, you see many colors of turning leaves, and they give the appearance of rhythmic form, but they are asymmetrically aligned.  It’s not that every other tree is yellow or that yellows and reds are in fixed repetition.  Two yellows may come at once but reds and browns alternate afterward.  It gives the appearance of harmony when you look at it as wide tapestry but it does not have a periodic cadence.  It seems balanced but it’s asymmetric!  Indeed it is harmonic but not in fixed repetition.  This is what Frost is capturing aesthetically, the woods in October.  That is the craft of a fine artist!

The pictures of the foliage are from the Staten Island Greenbelt, which is a conserved park.  I posted on a Father’sDay hike Matthew and I took in 2020.  It was spring time then.  It’s been a beautiful fall here this year.  Enjoy.