Here’s a detailed analysis of Robert Frost’s poem ‘Going For Water’; it’s tailored towards students taking the CIE / Cambridge A-Level syllabus but will be useful for anyone who’s working on understanding the poem at any level.
Great for revision, missed lessons, boosting analytical ...
The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;
Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.
We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.
But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.
Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.
A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.
, VOCABULARY
Brook - a small river
Not loth to - not unwilling or reluctant to do something
Pail - an old fashioned word for ‘bucket’, with countryside or farming / rural
connotations
Eve - evening
Boughs - larger branches of a tree
Gnomes - small mythical or fairytale creatures that look like old men, usually
wearing pointy hats - they have a reputation for being mischievous
Staying hand - a hand that you put on someone’s shoulder to stop them doing
something, or to make them stay
Ere - an old fashioned word meaning ‘before’
SUMMARY
Stanzas 1-3: The well at the house was dry, so the characters in the poem had to go
across the fields behind the house to fetch water, they are looking for a brook, but they
don’t know whether it’ll still be there. They had no reason not to go - the autumn
evening was cold but lovely, the fields belonged to them and their woods were next to
the river. They ran to the river through the fields as if they were catching up with the
moon; an eerily still night-time autumnal setting is established by the moon, bare
branches, lack of birds and no breeze.
Stanzas 3-6: When they got to the woods, they stood still and were ready to run,
hiding from the moonlight (as if they were gnomes, playing a game) - they were ready
to laugh and run to the next hiding spot if she (the moon) found them. Each put a hand
on the other to help them keep still; they listened before daring to look to see if the
moon was there. In the silence, they heard the river. The beauty of the brook stuns
them: they forget their childish game and remember their purpose - going to the
woods to collect water. The sound is delicate - ‘a slender tinkling fall’ of the drops,
which are ‘like pearls’, and then they become ‘a silver blade’, one sharp, long image of
the water reflecting moonlight.
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