Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Frost
This sonnet by Robert Frost depicts the temporary disturbance that war causes in the natural world by the testing of gunfire, known as range-finding. The poet is demonstrating how indifferent nature is to man’s destructiveness. The irony lies in the speed with which nature recovers.
The title is an...
The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung
And cut a flower beside a ground bird’s nest
Before it stained a single human breast.
The stricken flower bent double and so hung.
And still the bird revisited her young.
A butterfly its fall had dispossessed
A moment sought in air his flower of rest,
Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.
On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O’ernight ’twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.
A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.
The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,
But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.