October

Robert Frost’s “October” is a 21-line poem written with a formal rhyme scheme and compressed into one long, single stanza. Despite its technically being one stanza, adherence to sentence structure within the poem divides it into informal stanzas, each discernable due to the consistent use of punctuation and rhyme. It is a pastoral poem that takes great interest in the natural world, using that world to explore the more abstract and philosophical concepts of death and time.

Opening in formal lyric fashion, “October” begins with a direct address to the season, which in the poem functions as addressee: “Oh hushed October morning mild” (Line 1). The following lines further situate the reader within the day and season by providing basic observations conveyed through vivid imagery like “leaves” that have “ripened” (Line 2) and the suggestion that said leaves are so changed they may be blown from the trees by the wind. The crows function much like the leaves, with the speaker alluding to the imminent change in season through a reference to avian migration: “The crows above the forest call; / Tomorrow they may form and go” (Lines 5-6) presumably south for winter.