NCERT English Class 10 Poem - Dust of Snow

Poem - Dust of Snow

Writer of the poem - Robert Frost
Summary
    Dust of Snow by Robert Frost is a beautiful poem that is only eight lines long and seems to be the simplest of short poems with full end rhymes and short lines. On the surface, the two stanzas appear to be nothing more than a snapshot of a trivial event concerning a crow, a hemlock tree, snow, and a human being.

    But as always with Frost, you know that beneath the surface, there will be something thoughtful, deeper words of meaning and possibility.

    Shifting to the underlying meaning of the poem, it is first amazing how Frost had used a crow, dust, a hemlock tree and a wintry day, all symbols of gloom and death to represent his depressed mood in the first stanza. There is a remarkable and very clever shift in the poem as moves to the second stanza because it is set completely in a positive note i.e. the poet’s mood being made much better and glad.

    The theme of the poem is the magnificence of Nature that has the healing power of human negativity. It also draws to light that even the simplest of things or events have great influence on the human mind and that they might sometimes spark hope from the most unexpected quarters of life.