Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I
have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the
world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the
ground,
Save those that the oak
is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go
scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are
sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and
still,
No longer blown hither
and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the
witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question
‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a
treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace
to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Here in Central Minnesota we have already had a taste of
winter; some of our leaves were frozen to the ground when they were picked
up. We know how this ends: fall gives
way to winter just as summer gave way to fall.
“And lo, it is ended.” But we are
reluctant to accept it. “The heart is
still aching to seek, /But the feet question ‘Whither?’”
…when to
the heart of man
Was
it ever less than a treason
To go with
the drift of things…
And
bow and accept the end…”
Frost explicitly references the end “Of a love or a season,”
but we know he also means we are reluctant to accept death, the ultimate end,
as well as the loss of a love or the coming of winter.
What is striking is the way that reluctance, in this case,
goes against, not only nature (at the end of a season), but also reason:
Ah, when to
the heart of man
Was
it ever a treason
To go with
the drift of things,
To
yield a grace to reason,
And bow and
accept the end…
Endings are, not only natural, but also inevitable, and
resistance goes against reason. However,
it would be treasonous to expect “the heart of man” to “accept the end.” Human “nature,” it seems goes against the
external nature of the seasons, as well as its own power of reason. Head and
heart are in conflict as we struggle to accept the inevitable.
Who among us has not experienced that struggle? Who among us
cannot identify with that reluctance to accept the inevitable end?
At this time of Thanksgiving, as we celebrate all that we
have to be grateful for, let us forgive ourselves our reluctance to accept the
inevitable endings. And may our
gratitude for new beginnings never cease!
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