North of Boston, Robert Frost's second book of poetry, contains a number of narrative poems in blank verse. "Mending Wall," "The Death of the Hired Man," and "A Hundred Collars join "The Mountain" at the beginning of the book, and demonstrate how Frost has mastered blank verse at this early point in his publishing career.
Overview of "The Mountain"
A man has gone on a trip or journey and stayed in a village near a mountain, a large mountain that dominates the western skyline. At dawn he goes for a walk toward the mountain, crossing a river to get nearer the base. He takes note of the terrain as he walks, and eventually flags down a man who appears to be a local farmer, slowly making his way with an oxcart.
The rest of the poem is the conversation between these two. They discuss the mountain. The farmer seems determined to have the narrator climb the mountain. He mentions a perpetual spring flowing from the top of the hill. Frost tells how another time the farmer had engaged some other man who was about to climb to look for the spring, but that man didn’t make it high enough up the mountain to find it.
By the end of the poem, the mountain is well described, and the narrator appears ready to make the climb—perhaps not that day, although even that is in doubt. The farmer, having planted a seed of desire in the narrator, abruptly turns his team and leaves, not even staying long enough to make his last words audible. The poem also ends abruptly. Frost does not tell what the narrator is going to do: will he climb the mountain that day or won’t he?
Three Dynamics
Frost has three main dynamics to the story.
- Description of the mountain. From the beginning to end of the poem, the mountain dominates the dialogue and descriptions as it does the two towns mentioned. Descriptions are made of its sides, its slopes, its waters, its peak, and its impact on the community.
- Manipulation by the farmer. The farmer seems intent on having the narrator climb the mountain. He tells of the spring, and establishes a challenge in that another climber failed to get high enough to find it. The farmer explains why he, a life long resident of the town at the mountain’s foot, has never climbed it. He speaks with familiarity of the narrator, who is surely a stranger. Once the narrator shows some interest in knowing what’s at the peak, the farmer leaves.
- The narrator’s actions. The narrator is a hard man to pin down. Why is he in the area? Is this a business trip? He does not seem very familiar with the area, since he doesn’t know the town names. He seems to have time for a fairly long morning walk. He is observant, knowledgeable, and curious. He takes the farmer’s bait and shows interest in climbing. What is his intention? If he has business in the neighboring town, how can he find time to climb the mountain, especially when others won’t or have failed in the attempt.
Understanding What “Town” Means in The Mountain
The narrator asks the oxcart driver, “What town is this?” to which the other replies, “Lunenburg.” The narrator realizes he was wrong and “the town of [his] sojourn…was not that of the mountain.” Then he asks the farmer, “Where is your village?” and he replies, “There is no village….” These terms “town” and “village” can be a source of confusion, especially for those not familiar with New England political boundaries.
In the New England states, all land is divided into towns, and a number of towns make up a county. But the town is not a cluster of houses. It is a combination of villages (or cities once they get larger) and rural land. All rural land in New England is in a town. This is quite different from most of the country, where rural land is in the county but not in a smaller political jurisdiction, and the clusters of houses are called towns rather than villages.
So when the narrator states that the town of the mountain is not the town of his sojourn, he is saying that on his walk that morning he crossed a political boundary—a line drawn on the map, perhaps the river he crossed—and entered a new town, Lunenburg. Frost does not give us the name of the town of his sojourn. Lunenburg is a completely rural town, about sixty families in number, but with no cluster of houses to form a village.
This distinction becomes important to the story in the description of the mountain. It is so large that it consumes most of the land of the town, that is, the political division, leaving little room for growth or the forming of a village. From this discussion the reader understands that the local residents felt the impact of the mountain’s size. Not only was it so large that it hampered the growth of Lunenburg, but it also shadowed over the next town, on the other side of the river.
As with many of Frost's poems that tell a story, "The Mountain" holds many nuances for the reader who will take the time to dig in.
David A. Todd - David Todd is a civil engineer, a genealogist, a citizen concerned with the environment, and a writer by passion.
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