"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.
This simple yet interesting poem has an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme. In these 8 lines, Frost is able to get a message through to the reader, which he was able to do in just one, long sentence. It shows the effects nature and its magic have can affect the mood of a human being. A crow (line 1), is usually thought of as a sinister bird while hemlock trees (line 4), are said to be poisonous or “bad”. The combination of these two displeasing elements accidentally created the pleasing effect to have snow fall on the speaker, changing his mood completely. This is to show that we can’t always judge by appearances. The bird and the tree would be, at first, considered something unpleasant, but it surprised the speaker, altering his mood, and changing altogether the expectations he had on his day. By this small, innocent action, from a least expected source, the speaker says that “It saved some part of a day I had rued” (lines 7-8). This phrase means that the speaker was having a bad day and something as small as a dust of snow falling upon his shoulder cheered him up and was able to add something positive and nice to an otherwise dreadful day, he himself had ruined.
For more understanding of this poem, you may visit http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/robertfrost/12098.
