Re: Winter Solstice


Subject: Re: Winter Solstice
From: Ken Armstrong (ab997@SEORF.OHIOU.EDU)
Date: Thu Dec 23 1999 - 11:07:21 EST


>
> Yes, there is weariness in the last stanza.What comes to mind is that
> life is suffering. Everybody struggles.

  When I think of this last stanza in Frost's poem Stopping By Woods, I
think of Eliot's lines in The Dry Salvages: "Where is there an end of it,
the soundless wailing/the silent withering of autumn flowers..." answered
with "There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,/No end to the withering
of withered flowers,/To the movement of pain that is painless and
motionless..." Like Eliot's answer, Frost's repeated line seems to me an
affirmation. There is nothing of "suicide" in it; it is an acknowledgement
of our condition of existing between orders, with no destiny to be at home
in this world. I believe it is the affirmation of this truth that gives it
its resonance.

 Good wishes to all Percy listers in _these_ momentous days!

 Peace,

 Ken Armstrong



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