Into My Own

Into My Own



by 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.



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It's pretty clear that the mind of this person, and their wishful intent is to steal away into a forest which they seem to be gazing at from a distance, and wishing that that very forest would never end. That it would go on forever. It sounds like the writer wants to set off to find himself and do nothing else. That maybe he should rediscover himself. He seems to want to escape what we know as civilization since he mentiond "...where the slow wheel pours the sand."



He doesn't seem to feel the need for anyone in particular to go and find him; rather that simply seems senseless or unneeded to him. It would also seem, when he says "...all I thought was true", that he feels by doing so, he would find the truth about a lot of things, by being alone and thinking of them.



Personally, thought Robert Frost is not one of my favorite poets at all, this is one of my favorite poems of his. I think many people can easily relate to it. How often was it that we might sit that and watch the sky and the clouds for a bit, and suddenly feel that we should grow wings, jump up and fly to whereever we wanted or thought we should? I've felt that way, maybe too often. Or have you ever sat on a hill and felt you wanted to jump and roll all the way down it into oblivion? I think the writer must have felt something like that.

He also wants to escape civilization. Haven't we all felt that before? You wanted to go out into the middle of ANY nowhere and NOT find even a metal screw on the ground; not a hint of humanity? I've felt that way too. I think that is exactly what this poem is trying to convey.

What about you? What do you think it means and how are you understanding it?