Kindness, memory and the true meaning of human dwelling and building in two poems by Robert Frost

Re vista de Estwlios Norteamericanos, n! 4 ( 1996), pp. 217 -223 KINDNESS, MEMORY AND THE TRUE MEANING OF HUMAN DWELLING AND BUILDING IN TWO POEMS BY ROBERT FROST FÉLIX RODRÍGUEZ RODR ÍGUEZ Universidad Complutense, Madr id In one of his l ast lectures to st ude nt s Robert Frost argued that poetry was nothing but «dwelling on things»: «Gloating and doting», said Frost, «is the whole business, you know. Dwelling on thing s! Dwelling on things! «Dwelling on the fact! lf it's beautiful statisti csyou know, there are so rne beautiful statistics to gloat on, too. Th at's what it all i sdwelling on something that vibrates and stays in your mind and keeps coming back, ... » (livin g Voice, 191) lt was not the first tim e that he defined poetry in such a way. He had referred to his po em «Mowing» using similar terms four years earlier. This ea rly so nnet has often been associated by critics, as the poet himself also did when he acknowledged that it had «something to do with my own philosophy of art», (LV 133) with Frost's beliefs on the nature and aims of poetic writing. The emp ha sis on fact and its seemingly paradoxical reconciliation with dr ea ming , would fit into his distrust of the role of tran sce ndental experiences. As his writings on th e art of poetry clearly show Frost depend ed on his unconscious faculties, creative imagination, inspiration, reveries, for the co mpo sition of his poems. He on ce explained that poetry differs from philosophy in their shared co ncem for knowledge in that th e first attains it un consciousl y. Yet he always opposed, as the lrees in his remarkable poem «The Sound of Trees» that may talk of going but never do, th e ir feet safely rooted in the ground, a com plete departure from earth to any promising sky. The repeated symbo li c movements the speakers ofhis poems may either think of attempting or actually engage in , are a lw ays checked at the start or followed by an eq ually strong impul se that leads them back to rea lity, to earth. His intention is to stay with the things, to dwell on the things as he puts it. But how and to what exte nt can a poet dwell on this earth? Frost uses in his statement ju st 218 Félix Rodríguez Rodríguez quoted two words that should make his meaning clear: gloating and doting. The first one suggests satisfaction and pleasure and the second on e !ove and care. To dwell then would be bolh to find satisfaction in the objects of reality, to enjoy them, and to feel affection, even passion as doting also implies. This significance of the act of dwelling suits well the epitaph in which Frost defined himself as some one who had had all his lifetime a lover 's quarrel with the world. Though a constant and often frustrating conflict because nature objects to being known, it is al so a relationship that never lacks loving affection. Frost emphasizes this enduring and la st ing quality of his doting on things in the same quotation. By dwelling the poet keeps in his mind th e elements of nature that he laves. An essential feature of his affection is that he never forgets or dismisses them. It is a pa ssion that maintains alive the memory of the things that one once loved. To dwell would therefore mean not only to feel passionate love but to be capable of remembering long that affection. It is to have the capacity for faithful and enduring love, for that vibration and deep emotion that never vanishes, for the things that the poet cares for. Dwelling is also the subject of two of the essays of Martín Heidegge r' s book , Poetry, Language, Thought. In the first on e, «Building Dwelling Thinking », after establishing that no human building is possible unless man leams to dwell on this earth , he reflects on the real and true significan ce of the second term. Dwelling, he arg ues , is first of ali «a staying with things» that demands from human beings a different attitude in relation to the essential nature of the things around him. In order to be capa ble of dwelling, they should save and protect those fundamental features that make thing s what th ey are instead of wasting and mastering them: «Dwelling is spari ng and preserving. To save the earth rather than to exploit it or even wear it out. Saving the earth does not master the earth and <loes not subjugate it, ... »( 150) Heidegger, in one of his read ings of the poetry of Holderlin , finds thi ~ accomplished in poetical works. «Poetically man dwells» the philosopher shares with th e poet b ec ause as Heidegger explains poetry represents the embodiment of the harmon) of man, earth and sk y. The poet explores the dimension and space ex isting be tweer earth and sky and in doing so holds the necessary balance of those three elements Poetry allows poets to measure the span that se parates the sky from the earth yet eac h ol their imaginative flights, as Frost also defended, provokes an equally powerful r ea ctior towards th e earth. The object and aim of ali poetry, Heidegger remarks, is not to transpon man to a transcendental reality but to make him s ta y with things, to make him capabl( of dwelling: «Poetry does not fly above and surmount the ea rth in ard er to escape it anc hover over it. Poetry is what first brings man onto the earth, making him belong to it and thus bring him into dwelling .» («Poetically Man Dwells», 218) This measuring activity of poetry that lets man dwell and therefore build or ea rth is against the frenetic and excessive on e that the German philo so pher sees in th( modem methods of building. Unable to think of the true nature of dwelling that allow! him to be at peace with things by pr eserving th eir identity and own self, his building: Kindness. Memory and the True Meaning of Human Dwe/ling and Building in Two Poems 219 are th e result of a mechanical, blind and careless calculating that causes hi s restless and unpoetic existence: «Thus», Heidegger says, «it might be that our unpoetic dwelling, its incapacity to take the measu re , derives from a curious excess of frantic measuring and calculating.» (228) Only if man abandons his inappropiate and hostile attitude toward the thing s on earth, will he recover th e significance of dwelling. Only then will he be capab le of humane dwelling and building. But how is man to know the real nature of dwelling and building? What's more , how is he going to u se that knowledge to change bis mistaken dwelling and building? Heidegger finds the answers to these questions once more in Hold er lin. Poets, he says, can be at peace with things because they are kind to them :»'As long as Kindness, The Pure, still stays with his heart ... ,' HOlderlin says in an idiom he liked to use: 'with his heart,' not 'in bi s heart.' That is, it has come to the dwelling being of man, come as the claim and appeal of th e measure to the heart in such a way that the heart turns to give heed to the measure.» (229) As long as he retains things in his memory he will go on measuring the space between the earth and the sky. He will only fail to do it if his kindness abandons their hearts. Dwelling, either poetically or just humanly, is thus tied, as Frost had also put it, to the possibility of doting and remembering long the things that belong to this earth. These ideas and considerations of both poet and philosopher on the meaning of dwelling and building, are reflected in two poems of Frost in which a natural element, the brook, is the subject that elicits the meditations of the speaker. They are not the only poems ofhis in which brooks appear. How ever, th ey present similarities in manner and content which make them the right choices to s how the different ways man may stay wi th things. Either human beings are capab le of never-ending care for things as they are and, as a consequence, there is a chance for peaceful dwelling, or, on the contrary, they neglect the objects ofthe externa! world and bring upon themselves pains and sufferings. Th e distinct existences of these brooks of the two po ems show that both possibilities may occur. The poem « Hyla Brook» was included inFrost's third collection of poetry, Mountain Interval. lt tells of a small brook that disappears every June dried up by the heat of late spring. By that time its bed is already filled with the dead leaves of the n earby trees so that no one passing by would notice that there flowed a stream with «song and speed.» No one but those who, Jike the sp eaker of the poem, saw it flashing earlier in the year. He still remembers how it used to run befare it went underground to feed the vegetation that grows on what once were its banks. lt may n ot be as powerful and sw ift as those other brook s usually celebrated in so ngs but it s memory has remained with the speaker: A brook to non e but who remember long. :rhis as it will be seen is other far Than with brooks tak en otherwhere in song. We Jove the things we love for what they are. (The Poetry of Rohert Frost 119) 220 Félix Rodríguez Ro drí guez The final line of the poem, one of tho se sayings that Frost sometimes lik ed to end his poems with, explains why the speaker recalls this frail and puny brook. Though it is at pr esent nowhere to be seen, bis lave and affection has kept it in his heart. And he will retain the presence of the brook until it recovers its strength. The brook s ta ys with him when there is no trace of its stream but in the minds of tho se who are ab le to «remember long.» In thi s way, the speaker has proved to have th at one thing needful far dwelling. His kindness has pr eserved and saved from oblivion a thing of this earth and, he has done it without considering any kind of se lf -interest or personal benefit. His is the pure kindness that allows men to d we ll on things. Few people in the city depicted in the poem «A Brook in the City» in New Hamp shire , would know what to say ifth ey were asked about the bro ok that sorne time ago licked th e wa ll s of the old farmhouse. No one seems to recall when and h ow, as that of «Hyla Brook», it faded. Unless they looked at the old maps of this farmer rural environment th ey would tell the speaker of the poem w ho now seeks its present whereabouts, that no brook ever ran water over there. Fo rtunately far the brook, his questions are little more than a pr eten se to remind the population of this urban se ttting that it still lives and flows. Anyone searching far it should look in the sewers wh ere the constant and unrelenting growth ofthe c it y has driven it: What cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown deep in a sew er dungeon under stone In fetid darkness still to live and run- (231) This time the brook has not been wiped out by th e heat of the s un . Nor has it gone underground to nourish grass and flowers. The development of the city has tumed the brook into an useless and paltry thing. Instead of preserving th e essential nature of what it is, a brook, modern building h as wasted an «inmortal thing» as the poem d esc ribes it. It might well be this eternal quality of the b ro ok, as opposed to the mortal c ha ract er of the human constructions, that gives the speaker the n ecessa ry confidence to suggest that it is people's forgetfulness what does n ot !et th em live at peace. His words sh ar e sorne of that menacing inflection of the vo ice that warned the trees of «Spring Po o ls » against «sweeping away» those pools of melted snow. The difference is that whereas in «Spring Pools» t here is only the verbal threat, in «A Brook in the City» the p eo ple are al ready be in g paid back far what they have done to the brook. As the appropiate rcv enge far having being forced to gra pe unde rground into filthy and dark sewers, it has pushed its way into th e un consc ious c hannel s of the mind. In a sort of freudean reta li at ion, the brook haunts them day and night making th em feel uneasy and restless: Kindness, Memory and the True Meaning of Human Dwe//ing and Building in Two Poems 221 No one would know except for ancient maps That su ch a brook ran water. But 1 wonder If from its being kept forever under The thought may not have risen that so keep This new-built city from both work and sleep. (231) « Their Ears are not serenaded with the perpetua( murmur of Brooks», as Robert Beverly described in 1705 in his book The History and Present State o/Virginia ( qt. in Leo Marx's The Machine in the Carden, 83), the encounter of the first colonists with nature. Only the speaker would escape this curse that deters the rest of the population from leading a quiet and serene existence. He seems to be the only one who, as the speaker of «Hyla Brook» is ca pable of remembering long. He has kept all through this time his recollections of that brook he used to play with: J ask as one who knew the brook, its s trength And impulse, having dipped a finger length And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed A flower to try its current where they crossed. (231) Whereas the city has not only buried and sunk in oblivion but also deprivcd th e brook of its essential features as such, his memory has dwelt faithfully upon it. His remembrance of that past time when he dipped his finger in to its water and his warning against the city comes from someone who loved and keeps on feeling affection for the brook. Unlike the city whose «frantic calculating», as H eidegger puts it, has tumed the brook into one of the numberless lines that configurate its physiognom y, he has saved the image of the brook as it s hould look and be. lf the kind of building of this modem city proves that its people do not know the real significance of dwelling and, as a consequence, they do not live at rest and peace with things, he possesses the indispensable elements: love and the capacity to retain it. His pure kindness will perrnit him to dwell with things and therefore to build. Unkindness was precisely, according to John Ru skin, the origin of the vulgar and clumsy architecture of his time. In The Seven Lamps of Architecture, he missed the careful and patient toil of thousands of unknown workers who had put up the old buildings. In those archcs, balconies, sculptures and omaments of churches and palaces that he drew for his book, he perceived the devoted and delightful eff01t of the anonymous man who had carved the stone. In opposition to this architecture of old in which m en put their hearts in what they were doing, modern building is the product of what he calls machine work. It oug ht to be despised and banished not beca use the results are coarse or bad, but because they do not tell ofthe single human heart that made each of its details. They might be 222 Félix Rodríguez Rodríguez perfect buildings but their cold regularity of lines and unifonnity ignore the feeling and !ove that must always exist when hand and stone touch:»I cannot too often repeat », wrote Ruskin, «it is not coar se cutting, it is not blunt cutting, that is neces sa rily bad; but it is cold cutting the Iook of equal trouble everyw here the smooth, diffused tranquility of heartless pains ... » (162). Heideggger, alongside Frost, would have said that the cause of all th ese problems is that men do not know how to dwell any more. They seem to have for gotten how to stay wit h things, to be at peace with them, to love and r es pect the brook and the stone. In this sen se, mod em building is the highest expression of men 's loss of memory and care for things. If architecture, as Ru sk in himse lf observes in the chapter «The Lamp of Memory », is one of «the lwo strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men»,(169) it seems that it has resigned from this duty in modero times. Poets , as both Heidegger sees in Hé.ild erlin and Frost shows, through the speake rs of his poem s, in «Hyla Br ook» and «A Brook in th e City», continue to deserve that name. They save and preserve the earth and the things on it by means of the Ia sting !ove th ey feel for them. As a co nse qu ence, poetry lets men dwell by reminding th em of the meaning of dwelling which is nothing but to dote on an d stay with things. Building, on the other hand, no Iong er based on the true natur e of dw elling, condems rather than rescues them from oblivion. Someone, poets perhaps, should tell the people of the cities, as Italo Cal vino wrote in Las ci ud ades invisibles, that the road to their future is pav ed with remembrances and recollections. Mar co Polo realizes when he walks in the cities he arrives in, or ju st dreams as Kublai Khan, guesses, that the multiple fragments and details that may configurate men 's eventual existences are already given from the start. The countless boughs that will shape and sustain their live s grow in the past. lt is then their responsability to protect them so that they n eve r wither. As Calvino puts it, «los futuros no realizados son sólo ramas del pasado: ramas secas.» (42) The speaker of «Hyla Brook», by singing to the brook that once sung for him till snow an d rain renew its strength, seems to be aware of this close connection between past and futur e. His kindness retains the memo ry of h is brook until it washes off the dead l ea ves that now co nceal its dried up bed. The future belongs to those w ho have leamed that dw elling on things is to «r em ember long.» WORKSCITED CALVINO, ITALO. Las ciudades invisi /Jl es. Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 1994. COOK, REGINALD L. Robert Frost. The Living Voice. Amherst: Univ ers ity ol Massachussetts, 1974. FROST, ROBE RT. The Poet1y of Rohert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1966. Ki11dness , Memory and rhe True Meaning of H uman Dwelling and Building in Two Poems 223 HEIDEGGER, MARTIN. Poetry, Lan guage, Thought. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1975. MARX, LEO. The Machine in the Carden. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. RUSKIN, JOHN. The Seven Lamps of Ar chitecture. New York: The Noonday Press, 1974.