The Oven Bird
by Robert Frost
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 cease 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 cease 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.
Robert Frost's poetry portrays the enigma of humanity through his observations of nature. His poem, "The Oven Bird," is no exception. The high-pitched song of this bird reminds the busy human of the lessons learned through the simplicity of nature.
The iconic structure here is the oven bird, a woodland icon of summer, representing the natural progression of life. In the tenth line, Frost points out, "He says the highway dust is over all." This line is unusual in that it follows vivid, natural imagery that awakens the reader to the conflict between humanity's impact versus the seemingly insignificant bird. A bird whose voice sounds like a song to us, but to the bird, it's simply communicating to other birds in a natural way, "not to sing.”
In this poem, Frost also illustrates through the passage, "Mid-summer is to Spring as one is to ten," the necessity of a natural sequence and the devastation that can exist when humanity interrupts or neglects this natural progression.
