In a Vale
In a Vale - context Summary
Published 1913 in a Boy's Will
Published in 1913 in Frost’s first U.S. collection A Boy’s Will, "In a Vale" is an early, pastoral recollection that blends memory and imagination. The speaker recalls dwelling by a misty fen where nightly maidens, like floral and birdly manifestations, visit with voices and stories. The poem frames these apparitions as a mythic source for natural qualities—odor and song—linking youth, loneliness, and a receptive imagination. It functions as a lyricized origin tale and a nostalgic defense of the speaker’s attentive solitude rather than a literal account.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen I was young, we dwelt in a vale By a misty fen that rang all night, And thus it was the maidens pale I knew so well, whose garments trail Across the reeds to a window light. The fen had every kind of bloom, And for every kind there was a face, And a voice that has sounded in my room Across the sill from the outer gloom. Each came singly unto her place, But all came every night with the mist; And often they brought so much to say Of things of moment to which, they wist, One so lonely was fain to list, That the stars were almost faded away Before the last went, heavy with dew, Back to the place from which she came- Where the bird was before it flew, Where the flower was before it grew, Where bird and flower were one and the same. And thus it is I know so well Why the flower has odor, the bird has song. You have only to ask me, and I can tell. No, not vainly there did I dwell, Nor vainly listen all the night long.
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