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Dust of Snow

Robert Frost

1874 –

1963

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

This poem is in the public domain.

One of the most celebrated figures in American poetry, Robert Frost was the author of numerous poetry collections, including New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923). Born in San Francisco in 1874, he lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont. He died in Boston in 1963.

About Robert Frost

Themes

Public Domain

About this Poem

“Dust of Snow” was first published as “A Favour” in the London Mercury vol. 3, no. 14 (December 1920) and again as “Snow Dust” in a January 1921 issue of the Yale Review before appearing under its current title in the collection New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923). Laurence Perrine, former professor of English at Southern Methodist University, in his comment “Frost’s Dust of Snow,” published in The Explicator vol. 29, no. 7 (1971), writes that “‘[t]he way’ in which a crow shakes down dust of snow on Frost’s speaker is left unspecified, thus permitting several possibilities. I see them chiefly as four: beautifully, animatedly, cheerily, and humorously. First, the poem presents a scene of visual beauty, black etched against white, the movement of the scattered snow counterpointed against the immobility of the evergreen tree. Second, the action of the crow presents a bit of life and animation in a scene otherwise frozen and without sign of life. Third, the scattering of the snow on the speaker is almost an acknowledgment of his presence, a greeting, a communication between the two living actors in the scene. Fourth, the snow’s falling on the speaker suggests a touch of humor, as if the sly crow were playing a practical joke on him. The beauty of the action, its evidence of life, its suggestion of a greeting, and the touch of humor in it combine to lighten the mood of the speaker.”

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More by this poet

A Line-storm Song

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.

Robert Frost

1913

Not to Keep

They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying... and she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight—
Living.— They gave him back to her alive—
How else? They are not known to send the dead—
And not disfigured visibly. His face?—

Robert Frost

2018

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,

Robert Frost

1916

Poems

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Dust of Snow

More by this poet

A Line-storm Song

Not to Keep

A Time to Talk

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