Bereft Lyrics
Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch’s sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch’s sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.
About
Genius Annotation
Robert Frost wrote this poem when his then would-be wife, Elinor, left for college. He expressed the loneliness without her in this, projecting his personal emotions onto his surroundings.
Notice the recurring sound of ’s' in the mid-part of the poem. ‘Summer’, ‘Sombre’, ‘massed’, sagging', ‘hissed’, ‘struck’, ‘missed’, ‘something’, and ‘sinister’ are all accumulated to represent the sound of evil snake, along with the motion of ‘coil’, ‘hissed’, and ‘struck’, which he projected onto the clouds, porch, and leaves.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 1.Spring Pools
- 5.Atmosphere
- 6.Devotion
- 8.The Cocoon
- 10.A Peck of Gold
- 11.Acceptance
- 13.Lodged
- 14.A Minor Bird
- 15.Bereft
- 18.The Thatch
- 19.A Winter Eden
- 20.The Flood
- 24.Sand Dunes
- 25.Canis Major
- 26.A Soldier
- 27.Immigrants
- 28.Hannibal
- 29.The Flower Boat
- 30.The Times Table
- 31.The Investment
- 32.The Last Mowing
- 33.The Birthplace
- 35.Dust in the Eyes
- 37.The Armful
- 38.What Fifty Said
- 39.Riders
- 41.The Bear
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