Inspired by Robert Frost
Of Poets and Poetry
:
A Frosty Night
by ~Dovey
These woods, alive in dead of night,
The moon, o'erhead is bold and bright,
Where wolves still howl out on the loose,
Fur shimmers in the silv'ry light.
They stalk the wild and noble moose,
Amongst the cold and frozen spruce,
Fresh footprints in new fallen snow,
Will follow creek to gold-filled sluice.
This land where ice blue glaciers flow,
Auroras dance in stunning show,
Where mountains tower, straight and tall,
Forget-me-nots did bloom and grow.
The wild will howl so heed its call,
As mercury begins to fall,
Alaska simply has it all,
Alaska simply has it all.
Author Notes
The picture is of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) in Alaska.
My thanks to Craig for his input and for helping me keep my iambs straight ;)
I have long been an admirer of Frost. He loved New England as much as I love Alaska and it appears throughout his poetry. One of my favorite titles by Robert Frost is, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," (from which I patterned the poem above, in iambic tetrameter):
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Other favorites of mine include "Birches," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and "The Road Not Taken."
He served as a Poet Laureate for the United States and was the first poet to recite one of his poems at a Presidential Inauguration, for John F. Kennedy in 1961.
from (poets.org)
As inauguration day approached, however, Frost surprised himself by composing a new poem, "Dedication" (later re-titled "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration"), which he planned to read as a preface to the poem Kennedy requested. But on the drive to the Capitol on January 20, 1961, Frost worried that the piece, typed on one of the hotel typewriters the night before, was difficult to read even in good light. When he stood to recite the poem, the wind and the bright reflection of sunlight off new fallen snow made the reading the poem impossible. He was able, however, to recite "The Gift Outright" from memory.
Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
(an excerpt from his biography on Poets.org)
Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England - and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time - Frost is anything but merely a regional poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony.
