There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would sing and be as other birds,
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
is what to make of a diminished thing.
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would sing and be as other birds,
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
is what to make of a diminished thing.
REACTION
This poem is really confusing. The author is obviously talking about a bird while he is writing this poem. The bird is also singing some sort of song. The poem is structured into one stanza and doesn’t seem to have an obvious rhyme scheme. The poem seems to have a hidden meaning and the image of the bird seems to be very complex.
PARAPHRASE
Everyone has heard this singer, a loud mid-summer and mid-wood bird, who makes tree trunks sound again. The singer says that leaves are old and that to flowers mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall has happened when pear and cherry blooms have come down in showers to where on sunny days there’s a momentary overcast; and then comes the other fall that we call fall. He says the highway dust is over everything. The bird would be like other birds, but that he knows in singing not to sing. The singer poses the question of what to make of a diminished thing without words.
SWIFTT:
Syntax/Word Choice- This poem is structured into one stanza. Frost uses long, complex sentences utilizing commas and semicolons. Frost has no structured rhyme scheme in this poem. Frost uses certain words throughout the poem to emphasize the setting and the specialness of the bird. Frost uses the words mid-summer and mid-wood to give the reader a time and location special to the poem. He then uses the phrase “The bird would sing and be as other birds,” to show that the bird is special and not like others. Frost also uses certain words such as “overcast,” “fall,” and “dust” to set the tone of the poem. Frost utilizes phrases such as he says or he frames to emphasize the unnatural sound of the ovenbirds call.
Imagery- Frost uses the image of a bird singing during mid-summer in the middle of the woods through the duration of the poem. The bird image is shown best in the second line when Frost says, “a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird”. The singing part of the image is best shown when Frost says, “that he knows in singing not to sing”.
Figurative Language- Frost uses a few examples of figurative language in “The Oven Bird”. For example, he uses simile when saying “Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten”. Frost also uses personification when he says that the bird has the ability to create complex thoughts at the end of the poem. Frost also uses overstatement when he says that the “pear and cherry bloom went down in showers”.
Tone- The tone of this poem is melancholy. The beginning of the poem starts off only slightly melancholy, but towards the middle and end of the poem the tone is strictly melancholy. Phrases such as “And comes that other fall we name the fall” and “what to make of a diminished thing” paint this tone very clearly.
Theme-The main theme of this poem is ovenbird’s song. This song is one as Frost says that asks “what to make of a diminished thing.” This is important because Frost is trying to show that all good things must end. He shows this by the image of the cherry blooms falling to the ground and the transition from summer to fall.
CONCLUSION
My initial reaction is not very different from my analysis. This poem is very confusing until it is reread under the correct pretense. The author is discussing a bird in this poem. The bird is also singing some sort of song. The poem is structured into one stanza and doesn’t seem to have a rhyme scheme. The poem seems to have a hidden meaning and the image of the bird seems to be very complex. This meaning is that all good things must come to an end so why should we sing about something that must end?
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