My November Guest: by Robert Frost - Summary & Analysis

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My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise

My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted grey Is silver now with clinging mist.
My November Guest

Introduction:

      The poem My November Guest is from A Boy's Will by Robert Frost, in which the poet speaks of autumn and is considered to be one of the finest specimen of Frost's Nature poems. Here vividly depiction of autumn portrays a great description of nature

Summary:

      My November Guest is one in which metaphor is employed by the poet in a remarkably facile manner. Sorrow is pictured as a dearly loved woman. Personification is a kind of metaphor. There is the transference of animate attributes to arn inanimate thing. The poet achieves delineation and clarification through an implied comparison.

      Sorrow, personified as a woman dearly loved, is the "guest" mentioned in the title. Walking with the poet through the countryside, she points out the autumnal browns, greys and blacks in Nature - something the poet needs no guidance for; but he humors her tenderly because "they are better for her praise". The autumnal season of "desolate, deserted trees, the faded earth, the heavy sky", the days of rain seem beautiful to the poet's sorrow. The bare, withered tree, the sodden pasture lane, the departure of the birds - in these very scenes of desolation the poet perceives beauty, and in this perception lies joy. Thus joy and sorrow find a paradoxical coexistence in the poem "simple worsted grey" is "silver now with climbing mist".

Critical Analysis:

      Written in a simple language characterized by music and melody, My November Guest expresses the poet's love of the "bare November days, before the coming of the snow". The pictorial detail is noteworthy. Frost uses personification as another kind of metaphor to good effect.

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