Reluctance
OUT through the fields and the woodsAnd over the walls I have wended;I have climbed the hills of viewAnd looked at the world, and descended;I have come by the highway home,And lo, it is ended.The leaves are all dead on the ground,Save those that the oak is keepingTo ravel them one by oneAnd let them go scraping and creepingOut over the crusted snow,When others are sleeping.And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,No longer blown hither and thither;The last lone aster is gone;The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;The heart is still aching to seek,But the feet question 'Whither?'Ah, when to the heart of manWas it ever less than a treasonTo go with the drift of things,To yield with a grace to reason,And bow and accept and accept the endOf a love or a season?
Words in this poem
- ravel v. t.
- To separate or undo the texture of; to take apart; to untwist; to unweave or unknit; -- often followed by out; as, to ravel a twist; to ravel out a sticking. [. ravelen, D. rafelen, akin to LG. rebeln, rebbeln, reffeln.]
- crusted a.
- Incrusted; covered with, or containing, crust; as, old, crusted port wine.
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Reluctance is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Boy's Will, Project Gutenberg ebook #3021; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Frost, Reluctance, in A Boy's Will (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-boys-will/reluctance.html, id L04649.
Form and metre
Reluctance is 24 lines in a single stanza. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 12 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A-A-B-B-B-C-C-CDD-D-D woods · wendedA · view · descendedA · home · endedA · ground · keepingB · one · creepingB · snow · sleepingB · still · thitherC · gone · witherC · seek · whitherC · manD · treasonD · things · reasonD · end · seasonD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| OUT through the fields and the woods | 7 | ······· |
| And over the walls I have wended; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| I have climbed the hills of view | 7 | ······· |
| And looked at the world, and descended; | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| I have come by the highway home, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| And lo, it is ended. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| The leaves are all dead on the ground, | 8 | ········ |
| Save those that the oak is keeping | 8 | ······/˘ |
| To ravel them one by one | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| And let them go scraping and creeping | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| Out over the crusted snow, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| When others are sleeping. | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| No longer blown hither and thither; | 9 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| The last lone aster is gone; | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| The flowers of the witch-hazel wither; | 9 | ·/···/˘/˘ |
| The heart is still aching to seek, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| But the feet question 'Whither?' | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Ah, when to the heart of man | 7 | ······· |
| Was it ever less than a treason | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| To go with the drift of things, | 7 | ······· |
| To yield with a grace to reason, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And bow and accept and accept the end | 10 | ···˘/·˘/·· |
| Of a love or a season? | 7 | ·····/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.