Sunday, October 15, 2017

Can you explain "The Silken Tent" by Robert Frost, line by line?

"The Silken Tent" is an extended metaphor, describing a woman who is "as in a field a silken tent" (like a silken tent pitched in a field).
The poet compares the woman to such a tent "at midday, when the summer sun has dried the dew and all its ropes relent"—that is, in the middle of the day, it is quiet, warm and still, and there is no wind battering the tent and causing its ropes to pull taut. So, the woman, like the tent, is "at ease" in its "guys" (guy ropes). Instead of seeming tethered by ropes, then, the "supporting central cedar pole" "signifies the sureness of the soul."
The reference to its pointing "heavenward" suggests a woman supported by her own faith or beliefs; the woman does not seem tethered to the earth, or concerned by earthly and insignificant things, but is kept upright by higher concerns. "Strictly held" by no earthly cord, she is "loosely bound / By countless silken ties of love and thought / To every thing on earth the compass round." The woman, like the tent, is connected to everything all around the globe by her fond thoughts and love.
However, the poet then goes on to indicate that this is only the way the woman feels at times of stillness, like the tent at midday; the "capriciousness of summer air"—like the capriciousness of life—can cause one of the earthly tethers pull taut, making the woman, like the tent, aware that she is tied to the earth by more mundane things.

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