The Aim was Song

"The Aim was Song" by Robert Frost 

Robert Lee Frost born March 26, 1874 was an American poet famous for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of the American vernacular. Frosts work used 20th century New England rural life to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Frost died on January 29, 1963.

The Aim was Song 

Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught.

Man came to tell it what was wrong:
I hadn't found the place to blow;
It blew too hard--the aim was song.
And listen--how it ought to go!

He took a little in his mouth,
And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
And then by measure blew it forth.

By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be--
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song--the wind could see.

Frost uses this poem to analyze the evolution of poetry.Poetry evolves from an incredibly powerful unstructured being into a tame and measured song. The poem is about the structure, rhyme, and meter in modern poetry, hence it uses a very formal structure to emphasize the taming of poetry. The formal structure is seen in the iambic tetrameter with and the alternating quatrain rhyme scheme.  The way wind is used as a metaphor for poetry suggests that poetry before the modern age was an uncontrollable element, such as that of wind. However as the poem progresses, and new technologies and theories are invented, poetry becomes a tamable element. But, Frost does not want poetry to become too tame. As authors master the art of poetry, they begin to change it into a more “advanced” prose. By changing the way wind blows in the last stanza, Frost suggests that poetry is better left as prose, or at least as literature that should not have so much emphasis on tedious details. In essence, it's Frosts way of saying that he prefers to stick to regular metrical patterns in poetry rather than the more modern and almost anarchic prose, poetry, and free verse.  In addition to the commentary on the actual form of poetry, Frost also comments on issues from his time period.  The line "And held it l ng enough for north to be converted into south" could mean that the ideals of the north are spreading to the south. The wind could be a metaphor for northern ideals taking hold in the south.