A Line-Storm Song (A Poem by Robert Frost)

By Paul Matthew CarrLast Updated: February 28, 2024Views: 1917

In addition to April’s theme on DaddyElk being “Rainfall” it is also National Poetry Month, so to celebrate both of those things I thought I’d share a poem by Robert Frost. A Line-Storm Song tells of a man in a relationship who asks his partner to endure it with him.

I’ve always found Frost’s poems to be deceptively simple. On the surface the theme is a common one – almost cliche – every relationship can get “stormy” from time to time and through love and perseverance a couple gets through it together. But upon re-reading the poem there is a sense of melancholy, almost despair conveyed in the weather imagery. Ultimately this is a poem about romance and enduring love, but there is no real resolution. In the end the storm still rages, the couple is left in the rain. Perhaps they will survive the storm together, perhaps not. But that ambiguity tells us more about romance and relationships than a simple, pat resolution. In love the storm always rages, we endure together or suffer alone.

I hope you enjoy this poem.

A Line-storm Song

by Robert Frost

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
   The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
   And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
   Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
   And be my love in the rain.

The birds have less to say for themselves
   In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
   Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
   Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
   Where the boughs rain when it blows.

There is the gale to urge behind
   And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
   From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
   And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
   The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
   But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
   Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
   Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
   And be my love in the rain.

This poem is in the public domain.
Image by jplenio

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