Winter poetry
English 12/Miss Harris
Name:___________________________________
Directions:
Read the following piece of analysis for the poem and mark the parts that

make sense and/or add to your understanding or appreciation for the poem.

are not good points, seem a stretch to believe, or confuse you.
Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
-Robert Frost
As in many of Frost’s poems the spectre of Death is never far off and this poem seems no different. At the
first level of meaning is a crow shaking snow from a tree on top of the speaker, an event that changes his
mood.
Part of understanding poetry comes from asking the text questions, such as: how does snow falling on
someone change his mood? Why dust of snow, an image important enough to be used as the title? Is the
type of tree significant? Is the type of bird significant?
Often to ask the question brings ready answers. Wintry settings are often pictures of Death. Perhaps the
dust of snow invokes the dust to dust-ness of life. Crows are often harbingers of death. And while a hemlock
tree isn’t poisonous, the very mentioning of hemlock is enough to bring up ominous overtones. But the chief
question remains, how does a light fall of snow change the speaker’s mood?
We could answer that the levity of the situation is enough to lighten his mood. Or perhaps so many symbols
of death have reminded him that life is short. But there’s more to notice here. In the latter half of the poem
we have a gift, a change of heart, and the salvation at the end of the day. Of course, being covered with
snow is itself often used as a symbol of forgiveness (matched with the repentance in line six), perhaps too
snow falling has some baptismal element. These details indicate a deeper change of heart than a
simple carpe diem dictum.
Winter poetry
English 12/Miss Harris
Name:___________________________________
There are still two critical details that we haven’t discussed. The first is just a little trinket of a word that is
the thread that will unravel this poem for us. It is the final word, rued, meaning to suffer, to loathe, to
grieve. It comes from the old English word meaning sorrow and repentance. But not only that, it does
double duty, it is also a pun for rood, a cross or crucifix.
The final critical detail is how the heart is changed. It is not the crow that gives the new heart, it is not the
snow that gives the new heart, it is the way the crow shakes down the snow that changes the speaker’s
heart. The question then is: what is that way a crow shakes snow from a tree? It is here that a knowledge of
the rest of Frost’s poetry serves us well. Frost is a walker, a vigorous, relentless walker of the woods, and
often his poems are in that very setting. Even apart from that it makes sense to see that while the man in
the poem is walking, he is ruing the day. There is some turmoil or disdain that he carries with him as he
walks the woods. Coming around a tree he startles -above him- a crow, which, squawking loudly no doubt,
causes the bird to leap from his perch and fly away, thus sending down a light sprinkling of snow. This is the
way a crow shakes down snow. The change of heart comes from both seeing the crow fleeing and the act of
flying, the ascension itself.
This epiphany is echoed in its meter. Written primarily in iambic dimeter, there are three lines that break the
pattern, lines four, five, and eight. The appearance of the hemlock tree calls for an anapestic interruption:
“from a HEMlock TREE”. This ramps up the energy of the line causing it to spill across the stanza into the
next line: “has GIV -en my HEART”. These two lines, anapest iamb// iamb anapest, emulate the change of
heart, the increased heartbeat of the surprise gift. It is a cacophony, followed by the cadence of the sixth
and seventh lines, which return to iambic dimeter. But the final line reminds us of the transformation with a
rambunctious anapest -of a DAY-, a little skip at the end that reveals reality is forever changed.
Suddenly our apparition of death loses its strength; it flies away in fear. It is this flight, Death itself running
away, this method, that changes his heart; it is ascension, a glimpse of resurrection, that drives off death; it
is the gift, the baptismal rain, that has brought salvation. On a day both rued and rood-ed, the crux of joy
and sorrow, comes an unexpected gift, the day of death from which flows all life. Even a man of such
tattered faith as Robert Frost knew that on the heels of death, in the very dust, beneath the cawing carrion
bird, resurrection rises.