Frost used to rail against free verse but in his own way
introduced varying kinds of freedom into his verse.
Storm Fear is chiefly iambic pentameter interspearsed with shorter lines.
This use of varying line length together with a free rhyme scheme
occurs in other Frost poems such as After Apple-Picking and An Empty Threat.
Just as the shorter lines break down the iambic beat and its forward motion,
so do the spondees, in a natural and structural way.
Spondees, because of their distinctive double-beat rhythm, and halting effect,
are often used for structural sonic patterning.
The first one, wind works, in the first line,
establishes that this intermittent rhythm is going to be used as a structural element.
It is later echoed by: Ah, no;
two long syllables that by themselves cause delay.
But even more structurally by the spondaic foot, cold creeps,
which like wind works, is alliterative,
and is quickly echoed by the threatening fire dies.
These devices vitally re-enforce the poem's sense of concern & hesitency.
The rhyme scheme: ABCACD EE FGAFG HIDIH. Every line actually has a rhymed partner somewhere. The rhyme of out / doubt being particularly distant. Some of the short lines, 8 through 10, and 13 through 14, could be combined to form iambic pentametric lines, but are probably broken down so as to make apparent what would be almost imperceptible interior rhymes. The overall effect can feel almost unrhymed.
Note how the line: How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length describes implicitly how a wood stove heating a house creates a ring of moisture on the surrounding wood floor , as well as recalling the meditation on the stillness of a small blue flame in Coleridge's
Frost at Midnight,
which is itself a late night meditation in iambic pentameter by a father before a fire.
The rhyme scheme: ABCACD EE FGAFG HIDIH. Every line actually has a rhymed partner somewhere. The rhyme of out / doubt being particularly distant. Some of the short lines, 8 through 10, and 13 through 14, could be combined to form iambic pentametric lines, but are probably broken down so as to make apparent what would be almost imperceptible interior rhymes. The overall effect can feel almost unrhymed.
|
a prosodic analysis
Hear how natural and unconstrained,
When the wind works against us in the dark, the first three lines sound, note the lack of rhyme and how the shortened second one still seems to fit, and scarce disturbs the five beat rhythm of adjacent lines!
And note the spondaic foot of wind works,
And pelts with snow it will get echoed just before the end. The lowest chamber window on the east,
And now the rhymes begin! Eventually,
And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, almost casually, yet carefully, every line gets rhymed, eventually! The beast, 'Come out! Come out!' –– It costs no inward struggle not to go, Ah, no! I count our strength, Two and a child,
The last three lines above when grouped together,
Those of us not asleep subdued to mark do form a line of alternating beats- five feet of rough iambic. How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length, ––
Oh note the return of the spondaic beat!
How drifts are piled, And not just rhythm but also alliteration, The wind works.., the cold creeps.., the fire dies at length, Dooryard and road ungraded,
Again by taking the last two line together
Till even the comforting barn grows far away we get one five foot line that's notable for the inversion of the first foot after a comma, or other caesura. And my heart owns a doubt Whether 'tis in us to arise with day And save ourselves unaided. |
and an allusion to Coleridge
Note how the line: How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length describes implicitly how a wood stove heating a house creates a ring of moisture on the surrounding wood floor , as well as recalling the meditation on the stillness of a small blue flame in Coleridge's
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind...
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude
...
the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.
Unhelped by any wind...
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude
...
the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.