Robert Frost’s “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be The Same”

Robert Frost’s “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same” Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same is a poem by Robert Frost, which is a love poem along with being a perfect sonnet. It is about Eve, a Biblical creature who has come and left her own mark among birds. It tells a story in its words but also the sounds of its words and the way they play out and sound together.

This sonnet by Robert Frost is different then all others because of its speakable tone, along with his cunning sounds. Because of the wonderful wording that Frost is able to use in “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same,” it sounds more like a delectable short story than an actual rhyming and syllable patterned sonnet. The words that Frost uses in this poem are gentle but also firm. They speak to the reader and make it more of a dialect then a poem. The wording is more like something out of a story, like when he says “Admittedly,” “Moreover” and “Be that as may be,” it does not sound like a poem, but rather listening to somebody speak. This helps the poems atmosphere and makes its subject matter even more sensuous. Frost talks about Eve and her everlasting song. His poem is in many ways like the very song he is talking about. It has the phrasing, the stress patterns and great sentences sounds that make it more like a song that Eve would sing, rather then a poem written by a mortal. It has beautiful sounds that can affect humans just like Eve’s song left its mark on the birds.

Frost not only uses the meanings of words but the sounds and syllables of words and sentences. The way the poem sounds tells a story and gets across a feeling of Eve and her affect without even thinking of what any of the words mean. The poem is like a song and the shapes of his words are an entirely new form of oral communication. Frost uses the “music of the English verse” in his poem. It is the way the poem sounds that makes it what it is. He uses different shapes of words like “believe” with “Eve” and “round” with “oversound” unlike authors who would more likely stick to words with the same number of syllables. These words are not only a different number of syllables but also different parts of speech. While “believe” is a verb, “Eve” is a noun, and while “round” is an adjective, “oversound” is a noun. Even Frost says in his own words that sound is often more important than the actual words that are being used.

“Remember that the sentence sound often says more than the words” (Frost.) “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same” is about Eve coming down into a garden for one purpose, to leave an imprint of herself in the songs of birds. The poem is supposable written by Eve’s lover Adam. In the story of Adam and Eve, he reaches the garden first, so when she does come he can see how she changes the birds. Eve is Adam’s heroin and he finds greatness in everything that she does. To him she is more than just a woman. The poem suggests that the birds hear Eve while they are singing. They may hear her calls or her laughter, maybe even narotic sounds of her and Adam that they pick up on and sing along with. Because of Eve’s enchanting nature the birds sing along with her and carry her songs out of the garden and into the woods where other birds pick up on the new sounds and sing along.

The sounds of Eve keep getting passed along and she is forever in the birds’ song, making them “never again the same.” These sounds that Eve made were during the day, also when the birds were singing their own songs, so when they sang, they were singing together, each probably changing each other a little. Now when Adam hears the songs of the birds, he not only hears them, but also the sound of Eve. But what is most strange about the poem is that it is almost that Adam cannot hear Eve. Adam only being the implied “he,” has absolutely no direct communication with Eve in the poem. It is the one absent thing that seems like it should be there, but yet is not.

But it is in the last line of the poem that a very important aspect of Eve comes out. In the first twelve lines Eve seems like a sort of mystical angel who has flown down from heaven and has been so wonderful that her voice has been carried over into the birds. It is only in the last line where a different side of Eve is shown. It is a more powerful and a more amplified version of her personality. Before she was subdued, very womanly and very angelic. Now she seems more as having a hidden agenda. She wanted the birds to have a part of her in them. It was not just what happened, but what she had planned all along.

I thought this was a very mysterious poem because of the different things that can be taken from it. I really liked how it was simple to understand yet there was a lot more to be gotten from it. Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets because of the way he writes and what he writes about. His poems all have a certain tone to them that gives them a really pretty sound and are fun to both read and listen to. I liked how it was about a Biblical character that most people have heard about and probably know something about.

Eve is this great creature yet she is not like all others. Even though she is the first woman, she does seem to have a flaw, everything that she does is not for others, but some for herself. In the first twelve lines, I related Eve to be someone like Mother Theresa and at the end, I found her being more like other human beings and someone I could relate too. Because most of us do in some ways have interior motives and do not do everything just for the good of others, I found Eve to a more believable character.

I believe that everyone we meet leaves a piece of herself with us and Eve left a part of herself with the birds. She transcended the lines of just humans and not only left a mark on Adam, but also on other creatures that she met. I took her to be just like anyone else, except instead of being human and leaving her mark on other humans she was Biblical and chose to leave her mark also on birds.

I like the poem both because of the narrative of the poem and the fact that it was a sonnet and had a very nice rhythmic and rhyming scheme that flows when you read it. It was not like reading most other poems, such as Shakespeare that the words have to be rearranged and the context thought about to understand the true meaning. This poem says everything forthright while still having an aire of mystery.

When I first read the poem I thought it was really pretty and had a really nice narrative and after reading it a few more times, it really grew on me. I understood it more completely and started to understand that most likely “he” was Adam and from the very beginning humans have had a positive impact on other creatures.

Robert Frost’s “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same”� had all the ingredients for a great love poem. It had the narrative, the rhythmic feeling and the simpleness that anybody can understand. It stands out in my mind as one of the best love poems ever written.