Acceptance
By Robert Frost
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least, must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in its breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from its nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, “Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be be.”
About this Poem
“Acceptance” appears in Robert Frost’s poetry collection, West-Running Brook (Henry Holt and Company, 1928). In his article, “The Use of Irony in Robert Frost,” author, professor of English, and director of graduate studies at the University of South Carolina, Donald J. Greiner wrote: “The sonnet ‘Acceptance’ deals entirely with this balance of trust and mistrust, but its tone seems much darker than that of the other poems of ironic acceptance. […] The bird twitters ‘safe,’ but Frost shows that he does not consider this any great victory when he qualifies ‘safe’ with ‘at most.’ This bird strikes no boastful pose, utters no bragging words; ‘at most’ it notes to itself that it is safe. But the irony comes from the rest of its statement. […] As in so many of Frost’s poems, the fear stems from the recognition that some unknown force is at work in the universe. The title ‘Acceptance’ is almost bitterly ironic, for the bird accepts only because it can do nothing else. Its safety is a night-by-night struggle, and its only defense against overwhelming fear is acceptance of its predicament.”
About the Poet
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.
Joe
The Closet Professor 
August 13th, 2024 at 11:00 am
I’ve not read this Frost poem before and glad you posted it. I was especially impressed by how he ended the poem, with a bird like sound: “what will be be.” There must be a technical word for what the poet has done here, almost like a double entendre but here the human resignation to fate has just as much “force” as the little insignificant birds’, like the sparrow in the Bible.
August 13th, 2024 at 3:34 pm
I had not read this poem either until I came across it. Frost’s poems can seem so simplistic but have such deep meaning.
August 13th, 2024 at 10:14 pm
Joe, the poem reminded me of Ps 84, and specifically of this setting in Anglican chant, which I haven’t sung in a few years. I find the irony to be that the poet struggles as he projects his fears onto the bird. Yet the bird is rather oblivious/unaware of any other emotion because it knows it has found peace for the night. It’s vastly easier for the bird to function within the realm of God’s kingdom than it is for the poet to set aside his fears. Becoming like the bird in Matt 6: 25…the bird is not worrying, and the poet eventually accepts that the bird is safe and at peace. Let what will be be echoes the phrase do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Peace and grace, Bruce