Nature and Transience

Where it surfaces

• New Hampshire

  The narrator's desire to elevate the mountains and the description of unsprayed apples and unpruned grapes reflect a tension between natural wildness and human intervention.

• A Star in a Stone-Boat

  The fallen star symbolizes the transient beauty of nature, reduced to a cold stone in a wall.

• The Census-Taker

  The barren, stripped landscape and rotting trees highlight the transient nature of life and the environment.

• Maple

  The maple tree symbolizes both enduring identity and the fleeting seasons of life, as seen in autumn leaves and the sugar harvest.

• Paul's Wife

  Paul's wife is born from a hollow pine log and emerges from water, symbolizing the transient and mysterious beauty of nature.

• Wild Grapes

  The birch tree and grapes embody a natural setting that is both beautiful and precarious, with the speaker's experience highlighting the fleeting, transformative power of nature.

• A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey’s Ears and Some Books

  The search for the fountain, the decay of the font, and the abandoned house reflect the passage of time and nature's reclamation.

• Grace Notes

  Central to poems like 'Nothing Gold Can Stay,' 'The Onset,' and 'Dust of Snow,' which explore the fleeting beauty of nature and the inevitability of change.

• Fragmentary Blue

  References to birds, butterflies, flowers, and stones highlight fleeting natural beauty against the enduring sky.

• Dust of Snow

  The crow and hemlock tree, often symbols of ill omen, become agents of a fleeting but transformative moment, highlighting nature's power to shift human emotion.

• Nothing Gold Can Stay

  The poem directly explores the fleeting nature of beauty and life through natural imagery like leaves, flowers, and dawn.

• The Runaway

  The poem captures the transient moment of a snowstorm and the colt's instinctive fear, highlighting nature's power and the vulnerability of young life.

• The Aim Was Song

  The wind is depicted as an untamed natural force that is shaped by human intervention into song, highlighting the transient and malleable quality of nature.

• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

  The woods filling with snow evoke the quiet, fleeting beauty of the natural world.

• Blue-Butterfly Day

  The blue butterflies are a fleeting spring phenomenon, emphasizing the transient beauty of nature.

• The Onset

  The poem contrasts the seemingly final descent of winter snow with the inevitable return of spring, emphasizing the cyclical and transient nature of life.

• To Earthward

  Imagery of honeysuckle, rose petals, and earth underscores the fleeting nature of sensory experience and the speaker's changing relationship with the natural world.

• Good-Bye and Keep Cold

  The poem centers on the orchard's vulnerability through winter and the speaker's temporary departure, highlighting nature's cycles and the transient care humans can provide.

• Two Look at Two

  The encounter with the deer highlights the fleeting, transient beauty of nature and the couple's momentary connection with the wild.

• A Brook in the City

  The brook, once a living force intimately known by the speaker, is buried and forgotten, illustrating the transient and displaced nature of the natural world in the face of urban development.

• Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter

  The poem contrasts the vibrant life of summer with the stark stillness of winter, emphasizing the fleeting nature of beauty and song.

• A Boundless Moment

  The image of a beech clinging to last year's leaves highlights the lingering remnants of a past season, emphasizing the passage of time and the transient beauty of nature.

• Evening in a Sugar Orchard

  The fleeting sparks and the moonlight over the sugar orchard evoke the transient beauty of a March evening.

• Gathering Leaves

  Leaves symbolize the transient, ephemeral quality of nature—light, dull, and decaying after contact with earth.

• The Valley’s Singing Day

  The poem captures the fleeting moment of dawn and the awakening of birdsong, emphasizing the transient beauty of a single morning in the natural world.

• Misgiving

  The poem uses leaves and wind as metaphors for the fleeting nature of life and the reluctance to embrace change or the unknown.

• A Hillside Thaw

  The poem captures the fleeting, dynamic beauty of melting snow and the transformative power of sun and moon, emphasizing the ephemeral nature of the scene.

• Plowmen

  Snow and rock represent the transient and unyielding aspects of nature, mocking human attempts to cultivate or control it.

• On a Tree Fallen Across the Road

  The tree, thrown down by a tempest, represents nature's transient obstacles that momentarily halt human progress but cannot ultimately prevent it.

• Our Singing Strength

  The spring snowstorm is a transient event that temporarily transforms the landscape, highlighting the fleeting and cyclical nature of seasons.

• The Need of Being Versed in Country Things

  The poem contrasts the permanence of nature's cycles with the transience of human structures, as the burned house gives way to renewed lilacs and elms.