Into My Own
Robert Frost
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.
VOCABULARY
Scarcely - barely
As ‘twere - a conversational phrase (Edwardian) that means ‘as it might seem’
Merest - the smallest or most insignificant / unimportant
Doom - destruction, death, the end of life or the world itself
Withheld - held back from doing something
Vastness - largeness, a great expanse of something
Highway - a road
E’er - ever
STORY / SUMMARY
The speaker is standing opposite and staring into a forest of old trees; perhaps a pine
forest (which has rows of straight, dark green trees). He wishes that these trees
, weren’t just a ‘mask of gloom’, a surface that seems dark but is actually comforting
underneath. Instead, he wants them to stretch far back into the distance as a dense
wood that continues up to the ‘edge of doom’.
Nothing would stop him one day going deeper into the depths of the forest, beyond
the surface, towards ‘doom’. When travelling into the forest, he would never leave
again - never look for open land or a highway that leads the way out of the darkness,
where time and life goes on.
He doesn’t see any reason why he’d want to turn back. He also doesn’t want others to
follow him into the forest, even if they care for him or long to know whether he still
loves them - they could catch him up and try to change his mind or overpower him, but
it wouldn’t work.
If someone did follow him into the darkness and find him there, they’d notice that he
wasn’t any different from the same person they knew, just that he was more sure of
himself and he had made the right decision.
SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker uses an extended metaphor of entering into a dark forest to represent
the idea of making the decision to head out alone into a new chapter in life. There are
two ways to interpret this: Frost may be exploring the idea of maturity, of moving on
and venturing alone into the dangerous ‘unknown’ of the wider world, leaving
everything that he knew behind. More sinisterly, critics have also suggested that the
poem is representative of thoughts of suicide, the decision to embrace darkness and
head towards death. Either way, the speaker says that once he makes this decision,
his friends and family will be unable to stop him, because he has taken the decision
seriously and is very sure of himself. It is important to remember that the poem
represents only ‘one of his wishes’, so it is a thought rather than a decisive action at
the time of writing.
LANGUAGE
● Visual imagery - ‘those dark trees / So old and firm they scarcely show the
breeze,’ - the poem starts with an image of the forest; the trees are personified
Robert Frost
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.
VOCABULARY
Scarcely - barely
As ‘twere - a conversational phrase (Edwardian) that means ‘as it might seem’
Merest - the smallest or most insignificant / unimportant
Doom - destruction, death, the end of life or the world itself
Withheld - held back from doing something
Vastness - largeness, a great expanse of something
Highway - a road
E’er - ever
STORY / SUMMARY
The speaker is standing opposite and staring into a forest of old trees; perhaps a pine
forest (which has rows of straight, dark green trees). He wishes that these trees
, weren’t just a ‘mask of gloom’, a surface that seems dark but is actually comforting
underneath. Instead, he wants them to stretch far back into the distance as a dense
wood that continues up to the ‘edge of doom’.
Nothing would stop him one day going deeper into the depths of the forest, beyond
the surface, towards ‘doom’. When travelling into the forest, he would never leave
again - never look for open land or a highway that leads the way out of the darkness,
where time and life goes on.
He doesn’t see any reason why he’d want to turn back. He also doesn’t want others to
follow him into the forest, even if they care for him or long to know whether he still
loves them - they could catch him up and try to change his mind or overpower him, but
it wouldn’t work.
If someone did follow him into the darkness and find him there, they’d notice that he
wasn’t any different from the same person they knew, just that he was more sure of
himself and he had made the right decision.
SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker uses an extended metaphor of entering into a dark forest to represent
the idea of making the decision to head out alone into a new chapter in life. There are
two ways to interpret this: Frost may be exploring the idea of maturity, of moving on
and venturing alone into the dangerous ‘unknown’ of the wider world, leaving
everything that he knew behind. More sinisterly, critics have also suggested that the
poem is representative of thoughts of suicide, the decision to embrace darkness and
head towards death. Either way, the speaker says that once he makes this decision,
his friends and family will be unable to stop him, because he has taken the decision
seriously and is very sure of himself. It is important to remember that the poem
represents only ‘one of his wishes’, so it is a thought rather than a decisive action at
the time of writing.
LANGUAGE
● Visual imagery - ‘those dark trees / So old and firm they scarcely show the
breeze,’ - the poem starts with an image of the forest; the trees are personified
