Robert+Frost-+Home+Burial






 * [|Robert Frost- Home Burial]**


 * [|Home Burial Video]**


 * [|Linking video- Home Burial]**

==**//Background information://The exchange between the couple emphasizes what happens when difficulties strain relationships. Readers often sense a biographical reference, knowing that Frost lost a child and may have experienced a similar shift in relationship with his wife. For medical professionals, the story concerns the internal tensions that may be suppressed in physician visits, the kind of tensions that may need to be addressed if mental and physical wellness are to be restored.**==
 * ==**//Keywords//:**== || ==** [|Children], [|Death and Dying] , [|Empathy] , __ [|Grief] __, [|Illness and the Family] , [|Love] , [|Marital Discord] , [|Mourning] , [|Obsession] , [|Pain] , [|Parenthood] , [|Suffering] , [|Trauma] **== ||


 * ==**HE saw her from the bottom of the stairs**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Before she saw him. She was starting down,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**She took a doubtful step and then undid it**== || ==== ||
 * ==**To raise herself and look again. He spoke**== || ==** //5//**== ||
 * ==**Advancing toward her: “What is it you see**== || ==== ||
 * ==**From up there always—for I want to know.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And her face changed from terrified to dull.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**He said to gain time: “What is it you see,”**== || ==** //10//**== ||
 * ==**Mounting until she cowered under him.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**She, in her place, refused him any help**== || ==== ||
 * ==**With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,**== || ==** //15//**== ||
 * ==**Blind creature; and a while he didn’t see.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But at last he murmured, “Oh,” and again, “Oh.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“What is it—what?” she said.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“Just that I see.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“You don’t,” she challenged. “Tell me what it is.”**== || ==** //20//**== ||
 * ==**“The wonder is I didn’t see at once.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I never noticed it from here before.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I must be wonted to it—that’s the reason.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**The little graveyard where my people are!**== || ==== ||
 * ==**So small the window frames the whole of it.**== || ==** //25//**== ||
 * ==**Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?**== || ==== ||
 * ==**There are three stones of slate and one of marble,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight**== || ==== ||
 * ==**On the sidehill. We haven’t to mind //those.//**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But I understand: it is not the stones,**== || ==** //30//**== ||
 * ==**But the child’s mound——”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” she cried.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm**== || ==== ||
 * ==**That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And turned on him with such a daunting look,**== || ==** //35//**== ||
 * ==**He said twice over before he knew himself:**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“Not you! Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I don’t need it!**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I must get out of here. I must get air.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I don’t know rightly whether any man can.”**== || ==** //40//**== ||
 * ==**“Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“There’s something I should like to ask you, dear.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“You don’t know how to ask it.”**== || ==** //45//**== ||
 * ==**“Help me, then.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“My words are nearly always an offence.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I don’t know how to speak of anything**== || ==== ||
 * ==**So as to please you. But I might be taught**== || ==** //50//**== ||
 * ==**I should suppose. I can’t say I see how.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**A man must partly give up being a man**== || ==== ||
 * ==**With women-folk. We could have some arrangement**== || ==== ||
 * ==**By which I’d bind myself to keep hands off**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Anything special you’re a-mind to name.**== || ==** //55//**== ||
 * ==**Though I don’t like such things ’twixt those that love.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Two that don’t love can’t live together without them.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But two that do can’t live together with them.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**She moved the latch a little. “Don’t—don’t go.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Don’t carry it to someone else this time.**== || ==** //60//**== ||
 * ==**Tell me about it if it’s something human.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Let me into your grief. I’m not so much**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Unlike other folks as your standing there**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I do think, though, you overdo it a little.**== || ==** //65//**== ||
 * ==**What was it brought you up to think it the thing**== || ==== ||
 * ==**To take your mother-loss of a first child**== || ==== ||
 * ==**So inconsolably—in the face of love.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**You’d think his memory might be satisfied——”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“There you go sneering now!”**== || ==** //70//**== ||
 * ==**“I’m not, I’m not!**== || ==== ||
 * ==**You make me angry. I’ll come down to you.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**God, what a woman! And it’s come to this,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**A man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“You can’t because you don’t know how.**== || ==** //75//**== ||
 * ==**If you had any feelings, you that dug**== || ==== ||
 * ==**With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave;**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I saw you from that very window there,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Making the gravel leap and leap in air,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly**== || ==** //80//**== ||
 * ==**And roll back down the mound beside the hole.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I thought, Who is that man? I didn’t know you.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs**== || ==== ||
 * ==**To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice**== || ==** //85//**== ||
 * ==**Out in the kitchen, and I don’t know why,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But I went near to see with my own eyes.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**You could sit there with the stains on your shoes**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And talk about your everyday concerns.**== || ==** //90//**== ||
 * ==**You had stood the spade up against the wall**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I’m cursed. God, if I don’t believe I’m cursed.”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“I can repeat the very words you were saying.**== || ==** //95//**== ||
 * ==**‘Three foggy mornings and one rainy day**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.’**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Think of it, talk like that at such a time!**== || ==== ||
 * ==**What had how long it takes a birch to rot**== || ==== ||
 * ==**To do with what was in the darkened parlour.**== || ==** //100//**== ||
 * ==**You //couldn’t// care! The nearest friends can go**== || ==== ||
 * ==**With anyone to death, comes so far short**== || ==== ||
 * ==**They might as well not try to go at all.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**No, from the time when one is sick to death,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**One is alone, and he dies more alone.**== || ==** //105//**== ||
 * ==**Friends make pretence of following to the grave,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But before one is in it, their minds are turned**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And making the best of their way back to life**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And living people, and things they understand.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so**== || ==** //110//**== ||
 * ==**If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“There, you have said it all and you feel better.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the door.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!”**== || ==** //115//**== ||
 * ==**//“You//—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you——”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“If—you—do!” She was opening the door wider.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I //will!—”//**== || ==** //120//**== ||
 * ==**One is alone, and he dies more alone.**== || ==** //105//**== ||
 * ==**Friends make pretence of following to the grave,**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But before one is in it, their minds are turned**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And making the best of their way back to life**== || ==== ||
 * ==**And living people, and things they understand.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so**== || ==** //110//**== ||
 * ==**If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“There, you have said it all and you feel better.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the door.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!”**== || ==** //115//**== ||
 * ==**//“You//—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you——”**== || ==== ||
 * ==**“If—you—do!” She was opening the door wider.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I //will!—”//**== || ==** //120//**== ||
 * ==**“If—you—do!” She was opening the door wider.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.**== || ==== ||
 * ==**I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I //will!—”//**== || ==** //120//**== ||

**The poem “Home Burial” by Frost presents an emotionally charged dialogue between a bereaved couple. They have lost a baby in the past and the wife (Amy) is in deep sorrow. She spends her time gazing out of the window into the open land and the husband is irritated by her obsession. ** **One evening, he returns home to find her gazing out and gets irritated. He walks up to her telling that today he will find out what it is that draws her attention. We are able to understand that their relationship is strained because she says even if he looks; he will not be able to understand what the object of her attention is. ** **The ensuing lines reveal that the husband looks out of the window and states that: ** **“The little graveyard where my people are! ** **So small the window frames the whole of it”. ** **He is not able to guess why she should be obsessed with the sight of the small family graveyard. In return she says that he is hard hearted and gets ready to leave the house. He does not understand what it is he does that offends her so much. He tries to stop her. ** **“Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time. ** **Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.” ** **The husband does not relish the idea that his wife seeks out a third person to share her grief over the loss of their child. He feels he has every right to demand that she should talk with him to release her sorrow. They continue to argue as he requests her not to go and she repeatedly tells him that he is incapable of consoling her because he has no feeling for the loss. At last she says that she cannot believe that any man would be so insensitive like him so as to dig his own child’s grave. She resents him deeply for his composure, and feels that it is hard-heartedness. She vents some of her anger and frustration, and he receives it, but the distance between them remains. She opens the door to leave, as he calls after her. ** **The poem ends with the statement: ** **“Where do you mean to go? First tell me that. ** **I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I will!—” ** **Thus the poem ends with a note of determination of the husband to bring Amy back even if she were to leave him. **