Poetry Sunday: Come In

A book that I was reading last week referred to Robert Frost's poem, Come In. I was not familiar with it and so, of course, I had to look it up and read it in its entirety. And once I had read it, it stuck in my mind, as Frost's poems have a way of doing.

Some commentaries on the poem that I read indicate that the "dark woods" referred to here represent death. The call to "come in" is a call to surrender and die. But the poet ends with the statement that he was "out for the stars" and "would not come in."

I have no idea if that is truly what he meant by the poem. I just find it a lovely image of twilight, when the birds settle down for the night and often you will hear one getting in one last song before tucking its head under its wing to sleep. 

Perhaps it is an allusion to death. And life. An exhortation to look to the stars and to sing your song until the night closes in.

Come In

by Robert Frost

As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.