The Warm Summer Days Are Fading Away

The warm summer days are fading away, and cold, darker days are upon us, but is not this new season a welcome change for some? Many are ready to part with the heat and experience a change. The crisp autumn weather contains a sense of excitement in the air. Robert Frost uses personification, end rhyme, and imagery in his poem "My November Guest," to describe how the winter season with its "bare and withered trees" is welcomed due to its unique beauty.

The first and most obvious literary device utilized by Frost in this poem is personification. Sorrow is personified in the poem and given the identity of a woman dressed in "simple worsted gray." We see Sorrow as a guest and companion to Frost. The two are walking together, taking in the surroundings. Sorrow "loves the bare, the withered tree," and she praises the November day. Frost seems to be listening to her and letting her have her say. He keeps a kind of wise silence while she goes about, appreciating the beauty of the season but understanding the melancholy the season brings to some.

In addition to personification, Frost uses end rhyme in "My November Guest." "With me," "can be," and "withered tree" in the first stanza are examples of this end rhyme. In the second stanza he rhymes "stay," and "away," and in the third stanza it is "trees, "sees," and "these." Finally, in the last stanza, he ends with "no, "snow," and "so." The end rhyme gives the poem a musical quality and makes the poem's message of appreciating November.

The last and, perhaps, most impactful literary device Frost employs in this poem is imagery. Frost uses imagery in "My November Guest" to convey the idea of beauty in November. We can see the beauty of the land when he describes the gray days as "silver now with clinging mist." He speaks of his love for the "bare November days before the coming of the snow," and we can feel the chill in the air and the anticipation of the crystal flakes. The imagery helps us understand why November should be appreciated.

As one can see, Frost embraces November, an especially gray, bleak time of year in many parts of our country. He understands what Sorrow wants him to experience, and he accepts it. He writes in the last stanza of his love of this season, but he is not going to let Sorrow know of his love.