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Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained | |||
"A Passing Glimpse" by Robert Frost is a poignant and reflective poem that explores the theme of fleeting beauty and the human desire to grasp the elusive. Addressed to Ridgely Torrence upon reading his work "Hesperides," Frost's poem employs the motif of passing landscapes seen from a moving train to delve into deeper philosophical reflections about perception, memory, and the nature of discovery. The opening lines, "I often see flowers from a passing car / That are gone before I can tell what they are," immediately introduce the transient nature of the observed beauty and the limitations imposed by speed and movement. This fleeting glimpse sparks a yearning in the speaker, a desire to return and investigate the missed details, which is expressed in the wish, "I want to get out of the train and go back / To see what they were beside the track." Frost then explores the human tendency to try to identify and categorize experiences, even those that are fleeting or not fully understood, as seen in the lines, "I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't." This act of naming what the flowers were not, rather than what they were, highlights the limitations of human knowledge and the frustration that accompanies incomplete experiences. The poet mentions specific flowers – fireweed, bluebells, and lupine – each associated with particular habitats and suggesting robust, vivid life thriving in challenging conditions. By specifying what the flowers "weren't," Frost deepens the mystery of the unidentified flowers, enhancing the sense of something precious and rare, glimpsed momentarily and then lost. The deeper philosophical insight of the poem emerges in the final lines: "Was something brushed across my mind / That no one on earth will ever find? / Heaven gives it glimpses only to those / Not in position to look too close." These lines suggest that some truths or beauties are only revealed in fleeting moments, perhaps because their full revelation would be overwhelming or because they require a certain perspective to be perceived. The idea that "Heaven gives it glimpses only to those / Not in position to look too close" implies a divine or cosmic intentionality in what is revealed and what is concealed, suggesting that some knowledge or beauty is reserved for moments of passing engagement rather than sustained scrutiny. Overall, Frost's "A Passing Glimpse" is a meditative exploration of the fleeting encounters with beauty that punctuate our lives. It captures the tension between the desire to know and understand fully, and the realization that some things may be more profound or more beautiful because they are glimpsed briefly and not fully grasped. The poem itself, like the flowers seen from the train, offers a brief, beautiful insight that invites reflection and leaves a lasting impression of wonder and a poignant sense of what cannot be fully known. POEM TEXT: https://www.robertfrost.org/a-passing-glimpse.jsp
| Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO RIDGELY TORRENCE - PLAYWRIGHT by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON PASSING GLIMPSE; TO RIDGE TORRENCE ON LAST LOOKING INTO HESPERIDES by ROBERT FROST BUT OUTER SPACE by ROBERT FROST A DREAM OF JULIUS CAESAR by ROBERT FROST A PECK OF GOLD by ROBERT FROST A STEEPLE ON THE HOUSE by ROBERT FROST A SUMMER'S GARDEN by ROBERT FROST A WINTER'S NIGHT by ROBERT FROST |
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