One of Robert Frost’s earliest published poems, “Into My Own” first appeared in New England Magazine in May 1909 (and hence is in the public domain), then in his first collection, A Boy’s Will, then was included in most collections of Frost’s poems. “Into My Own” has all the features for which Frost became famous. One reads the poem over and over, thinking the meaning is clear, but from each reading must re-interpret.
Explication
The poem tells the story of someone who has a wish to escape present circumstances. Some large trees, so large and dark to that the breeze doesn’t move them, symbolize the narrator’s longing for something different in life. The trees are “the merest mask of doom,” the speaker wishes they were more than a mask, yet wants to steal away “into their vastness.” In other words, the speaker wants to go into gloom and to the edge of doom. Such seems a detriment to the speaker, het he is determined. Or maybe they are the edge of gloom only while he is not in them.
The speaker won’t care if he ever finds open land or a highway within the trees. Something else is calling him/her. He will never turn back. He speaks of those he leaves behind as missing him, but not of him missing them. He does not believe that if any of his acquaintances would follow him that they would find him unchanged. He would be the same person “they knew,/ only more sure of all I thought was true.
Mastery of Poetic Devices
Frost showed how, at this early stage of his career, he had already mastered numerous poetic devices. Among them in this poem are:
- Form: The poem is sonnet-like in appearance, with 14 lines of iambic pentameter as the metrical pattern, divided into three quatrains and a closing couplet. Only in the use of rhyming couplets does it differ from what the reader expects.
- Imagery: The image of the trees is progressively built, line by line. The reader will picture a mental image of large trees, first a thin line, then a forest, then a forest with no internal breaks. Later, the reader might picture a party looking for the one who stole away.
- Rural scenes: The image of the trees is definitely rural. They are not at the edge of the village green, but rather at the edge of town, or at the edge of the farm.
- Metaphor: The trees are a mask. Masks hide the true character of what is behind the mask. The trees are a mask of doom. What is beyond the trees?
- Meter: Frost’s meter is impeccable. It is a regular pattern, but not so regular that the effect is juvenile.
- Rhyme: The rhymes seem natural and unforced. While they are unmistakable, the reader comes away believing the words were chosen for meaning, not for their sound.
- Internal sonics: Consonance such as “scarcely show” and “merest mask,” combine with alliteration, such as the frequent us of “s” sounds in the first stanza, to give the poem a pleasing sound to the ear.
- Contradiction: The trees are a mask of doom, something that is thin. The trees are vast, without highway or open land. So what is the speaker actually wanting?
- Line breaks: Each line is masterful in asking more questions than it answers, or leaving the reader unsure of what is being said, and of needing to re-read prior lines and reinterpret them based on the last line.
With such techniques, Frost, in an early poem, showed the excellence in poetic technique that marks his long career. The reader can see, in this poem, his own longing for something different, something better, and go with Frost into the trees.
For other discussions on "Into My Own", see:
Imagery and Metaphor in "Into My Own"
Word Choices Distinguish "Into My Own"
Source: Edward Connery Lathem, Ed. The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged, 1979 New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
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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