Robert Frost: how escaping into nature helps us cope with the chaos of reality
Frost was writing in different times to those we are currently experiencing, but his poetry provokes us to reconsider how we cope with the challenges that invade our world.
Robert Frost wanted his poetry to be a ‘momentary stay against confusion’. His poetry is concentrated around metaphorical images of nature, some of which can be said to represent an escape or retreat from the chaotic stress of the fast-paced modern world; a dark, snowy, silent woods to shake off life’s noise. Although written nearly one hundred years ago, Frost’s sentiments are equally, or perhaps even more so, important now.
In Frost’s poetry, we are free to just be; the important questions we face as humans are embodied by the reassuring inevitability of nature. This leaves the reader in a space of freedom, quietness and noticing, in which, I believe, we can see ourselves more clearly. With the superficial noise of life left outside the quiet, metaphorical ‘woods’ we enter into, we can view our reality with peace and acceptance. Like we find beauty in the setting sun, reassured that its gold cannot stay but it will again rise — so too can we find an acceptance towards that which causes us pain, reassured that all is temporary. With an immersion in our connection to nature, we are thus reunited with what is most important to us, both internally and externally. Sometimes, the act of looking outwards permits a better understanding of ourselves than constantly looking inwards does.
Frost’s slow-paced, melodic images of nature immerse his reader in their senses: by slowing down and simply noticing our immediate surroundings in this way, Frost creates a space where our emotions are free from overstimulation, analysis, stress and questioning. His poem Nothing Gold can Stay exemplifies this: it expresses a peaceful observation of the transient cycle of nature, inviting the reader to notice the beauty that comes from the simplicity of ending.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
(Robert Frost, 1923)
The security and certainty of his melodic rhyming couplets satisfies us with the reassuring inevitability of nature’s rhythmical pattern of growth and decay, subtly reminding us that we, too, are part of this overarching rhythm of life. Capturing the decline of life in such a beautifully ‘golden’ way, Frost allows us to project that which causes pain and suffering into something picturesque. By doing this, the struggles, stresses and pains we normally internalise can instead exist in the quietly peaceful space between us and nature.
Frost’s poetry thus encourages an immersion in the physical sensations of the world around us — the small, peaceful, often unnoticed moments and physical surroundings that, ultimately, make up the patchwork of our lives. This escape, I want to argue, is not a ‘defeat’, or a rejection of the busyness of life. Rather, it connects us to our own inner reality with much greater intimacy: instead of hurtling along our interior motorways, dashing from one lane of thought to the next and dodging other blinkered drivers en route, it is vital to take a moment of pause on the hard shoulder, and appreciate the silence this distance provides. Although it is increasingly demanded from us, we are not made for the continuous overload of senses, emotions and information that every aspect of life seems to throw at us. Having the space where we can escape this puts us in touch with our own inner reality — a whispering truth only audible when the overwhelming noise of life is silenced for a moment.
This is an especially important notion in times like these. In a world where everything is virtual, and limits on human connection are replaced by the limitless information we can relentlessly access, the ability to find a quietness that gives space to our inner reality is essential. In a time where the pandemic has forced us to physically shut our doors to the world, appearing to incite only suffering, isolation and bad news, perhaps this can instead be embraced as a time to step out and escape into Frost’s snowy woods, immersing ourselves in the immediacy of our senses, the intensity of physical feeling, and the lessons nature offers. Because this heightened connection to the simplicity of our own, intense reality is not an evasion of the external world — it is an escape only to return, with a clarity that comes from the distance and peace we achieve.
