Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow”

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

- Narrator is under hemlock tree

- “From a hemlock tree”

- It is winter and there is snow on the tree

-”The dust of snow”

- While under the tree, a crow takes off and snow falls on the narrator

-first stanza

- because the snow falls on him, the narrator goes from a bad mood into a good mood

-”A change of mood…/ From a day I had rued”

The overall mood of this poem in somewhat enlightening. It talks about a man whose mood had been changed for the better because of a simple thing. It gives the reader a sense of happiness.

The Blue Bowl

Jane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.

• narrator’s cat died, they bury it with its blue bowl–> “buried the cat/ With its bowl”
• cat had caught a white bird earlier–> “the white feathers/ between his toes”
• Narrator thinks that he should not be so sad–> “There are sorrows keener than these”
• robin’s song is irritatingly happy to narrator, does not compliment his sad feelings–> “like a neighbor who means well/ But always says the wrong thing”

This poem is about a family that has just buried their cat with its blue bowl, and the family is upset about it. They put the “sand and gravel” on top of the cat, and are somewhat haunted for the rest of the day with thoughts of it (”Silence the rest of the day..”). They are almost numb because of the cat’s death, yet they seem to think that they should not be too sad about it.