Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) churchward,
He waited, (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
"Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure."
The age-long theme is Age's.
'Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being overflooded
With happiness should have it.
And yet not know they have it.
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing-
Too present to imagine.
Carpe Diem by Robert Frost • 137 poems by Robert FrostEdit
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Robert Lee Frost [1874-1963] was born in California USA on 26th March 1874. His parents William Prescott Frost and Isabel Moodie, met when they were both working as teachers. Robert was the eldest of their two children, Jeanie being his sister.
In 1885 following the death of his father, the family moved in with his grandfather in Lawrence Massachusetts.
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By Robert Frost, © 1919, All rights reserved.
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No wonder Frost is a favorite of mine.
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This was phenomenal. Wording was perfect for me and the ideas expressed are vivid and can cause one to really question. Brilliant work.
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- I felt compelled to read this poem because of the title... which is the motto on our family coat of arms ! Glad I did read it as it was a very interesting poem. I've heard the name but never read any of his poetry before. The 'now' is usually confusing to most of us and is processed much better once there is a bit of distance. Carpe Diem, meaning 'seize the day', suggests that life is lost in the past and future, today is overwhelming, not enjoyed to its fullest. We need yesterday and tomorrow to decide whether today was a good day, or not ! Lots of interesting thoughts and concepts, cleverly put together.
Wow. This poem takes you from a scene of two children from the perspective of time as it passes to an in depth view of time : life in ratio to happiness : death, analogically. How the present is tiny and miniscule compared to the vastness of the past and future, yet still so important. This guy is deep. He is one of my favorite poets of all time.
the present is definitely ominously present but that is what makes it a gift right? I love Frost's poetry
Frost is wise...yes, the present is too crowded and too confusing...we are trying to control our emotions and be civilized and figure things out. The term Carpe Diem used to bother me a lot when I was in AP English class and I got it in every graduation card and I wasn't sure why, just figured it was because it was just thrown out there as a good, educated thing to say to a student graduating...but now it bothers me more, bc into dreaming and not getting me ready for reality of college and the working environment. Some might argue this, but I was a dreamer bc I came from a bad family so I thought it was be much easier than it was and I am still struggling to get everything into place so I can now be who I want to be bc of sayings like this....it just fed my fantasies of the future ...like Frost said..."but bid life seize the present?; it lives less in the present; than in the future always; and less in both together; than in the past. The present; is too much for the senses..."
- Carpe Diem is philosophy of mine and this poem is excellent.. lovely Frost..
Each generation takes on a new perspective. Everyone of course, tries to live with happiness surrounding them, but sometimes it just doesn't go the way we want it. Life has turns that are not for seen till they are right upon you. Live in the moment, and the future will get here when it does. And sometimes all of us feel overwhelmed. Great thoughts to ponder upon, and when I grow older .....
- Age considers the young lovers and discovers that this 'present' is too much for the senses, as are all 'presents'...
The poem is inclusive but deals in exclusion - one age cannot accurately impress it's 'stance' on another - we are not the same work, we sit as separate volumes on a shelf.
This is why age whispers 'carpe diem' once the lovers are gone - age knows they would not understand.
In this piece I can really feel the pressure on age, and the pressure age exerts.
It is all concerns.
At the close age cannot imagine the present, it's own demise and we're back to inclusion again.
Overall, I find this a very sad work - yes, it's got an important message, but the speaker is age and I find age unhappy and alone with its cares.
I think it's good work, but I frequently read better from some of APs 'stars' My own interpretation of this poem...
L1-5: Age, personified here, sees a young couple on their way, though he can't tell whether they are going to go home (metaphorically, to home comforts?) or away from the village (to seek adventure?) or churchward (perhaps to marry and settle down?).
L6-10: Age wishes the young couple 'Be happy... And seize the day of pleasure', i.e. carpe diem, in a somewhat hedonistic fashion. Except, he doesn't actually do that. He waits until they are out of earshot to do so. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe he just doesn't want to seem rude by interrupting them. I wonder though if it's because the idea of 'carpe diem' belongs to Age (L11) in the sense that Age uses it himself as part of his own worldview. He likes to think that by living out 'carpe diem', the world makes more sense, or maybe Age feels younger in doing so.
L12-18: I read this as Age seeing the theme of 'carpe diem' in poems (literature in general?), even where this is not the main point of those poems (thus, 'imposed'). Age does not think people should be 'overflooded with happiness' (too content with life?) lest they become complacent and give up on living a full life.
L19-end: Here the speaker of the poem considers the problem of telling people to 'seize the present'. Can it be done? The speaker observes: (1) Life lives more in the future than in the present; (2) Life lives more in the past than in both the present and future combined. I think the idea here is that we are either too caught up in worrying about what the future might hold (or alternatively, in making plans for the future that might not happen) or trapped by past events, for the 'carpe diem' message to be effective. The poem concludes with the idea that the present is too overwhelming 'to imagine'. Perhaps the poem then is an explanation of why 'carpe diem' is such a perennial theme in literature: it is so difficult for us to achieve in life. Sadly, but inevitably, the question 'Should we seize the present?' remains unanswered.
- Well what a poet to get every one analyzing his poem in this way, Ive enjoyed reading everyones thoughts, theories! Must be a great poet, with all these musings...
- Frost was a genius, but this is not my favorite Frost. While the first 18 lines have some immediacy, by L19 and through L26, he seems to have abandoned the lovers on the trail and commenced a more theoretical, more academic discussion on man's relationship with time. I feel like "Age" needs to get on down the trail himself and stop living as a disconnected observer.
};-{> a reply to the comments below:
Theoretically, to me, there is no such thing, if we live in an infinity, and I think we do, as the "present" - the present cannot exist, try to put your finger on it??? There is only an engine (found only in life forms that have developed a sense of and/or an ability to measure) that exists between the future and the past which pumps the future into the past. In an infinity - there is no such thing as time, it is only a measurement that earthlings have developed for their convenience. There cannot be time when there is no beginning or end. The span of the life of a fly is a lifetime to the fly and a few weeks to a human and a nana second to a Bristlecone Pine, but in reality they are all the same in infinity.
So all this discourse about lovers and the present and it's flow over into the future and spill into the past is sentimental hogwash produced by reflections and projections driven by hormones and adrenaline's, expectations and the innate pounding of life's true meaning and purpose, which is inherent in all living things, animal and plant, as the fifth force in the universe: the force that demands cell to split and every living entity to propagate.
The force of progeny is disguised in many ways, as an emotion, as rampage, as desire and as love. It can be strong or weak or unavailable - dependent upon the condition and makeup of the receptors within the lives that receive it. Mutations of genes determine the in-and-output of the receptors. These results are seen in the degree or lack of degree of emotionality portrayed in all life which ranges from a overpowering cold hard must be done job to an elaborately decorated tangolike dance stage with all the imaginable trimmings from romance and horseplay to foreplay and climax and ejaculation. Marriage is just a rule of justification designed to tame the overpowering impulses in one specific species of life and somewhat manipulate the process of random selection.
Frost was a both a romantic and a uninvolved observer of human endeavor. He was more philosophical than emotional, seeing things as they really are or were, but he also had a deeply developed understanding of the whys and wherefores of human and other animal going-ons. He always left a little message in his poems after poetically and usually brilliantly describing his observations. He, like Emily Dickinson and Thomas Hardy and the master William Shakespeare and a few others excelled in the ability to make mountains out of molehills and molehills out of mountains.
- Is the word "Age" code for "the great poets of past ages?" That's what I take it to mean when he says: It was Age that imposed on poems this burden to constantly warn the young to enjoy it right away. It sounds like he's trying to say, delicately, that the poet who wrote "gather ye rose buds" was full of poo. I could be wrong. Frost would probably never say that.
The present is too present, he says. Makes perfect sense, if you look at the brain as a rather slow but massive computing device. Not a computer in the fashion that man makes. The brain appears to process very rapidly in some ways, and in others it is slow and uncomprehending. Especially when passion cranks life up a notch.
Is there really any good advice to give young lovers? I doubt it. I've advised my wife's daughter and her husband a few times; they seem none the worse for it. But their mistakes will be their best teachers, more than any adages from their crackpot of a father-in-law.
I can't help but distill Frost's poems down to a newspaper article. They are always so formally composed that they lend themselves easily to such compression. Here is my attempt:
"Scene: Churchyard, twilight, man feels young people should seize the present."
"Narrator suggests this idea came from earlier poets, who feared that young people would not take time to evaluate their current happiness."
"Narrator, now fully removed from the original scene, suggests that the present is too difficult to process immediately."
With the obscuring prose removed, the point becomes clear:
Great Poets: Pay attention!
Frost: Don't bother.
He also suggests that the future and past are where we properly find life's best living. I agree with that assessment.
- So deep, strong and true.
Frost - Words of wisdom, in a poetic voice, strong and true. Bold and strength indeed! The voice of Frost, is one that none can match and few can compare to! A true master of words, yet, master of nothing!
Senses
From guest Hamid (contact)
I think we need to keep in mind that Robert Frost is a modernist. Modernist poets are fully aware of the complexities of the present and the overwhelming experience that comes with it. The role of the senses in perceiving the reality of the present time is made impossible by the ever-shifting concepts and the long established beliefs. I think the bottom-line of the poem is the last four lines. They remind me of the plight of Prufrock in T. S Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Prufrock, in his day-dreaming, is tormented by the inconceivable reality of his present. His senses thrash him with data that his mind is unable to process. Prufrock is in love also, like the couple the Age sees; however, he is too confused to imagine or understand his situation.Desire
From guest Ryan (contact)
Pretty much everything has been said about it's overall meaning. About how it's not actually possible to "seize the day". But I did want to point out these few lines: "'Twas Age imposed on poems/Their gather-roses burden/To warn against the danger/That overtaken lovers/From being overflooded/With happiness should have it/And yet not know they have it." I think he's hinting at a bit of what he as a poet has mentioned before, or thought about before about desire. How desire in a relationship can make things perish. Much like he talked about in fire and ice. He's almost saying at "twas age imposed on poems" that hey, I've already said this. Even though the poem itself isn't saying that, it's the feel and what I get from the lines.- So true, so strong. An endearing piece by a master-
- gah frost is amazing<3 such an amazing poem. definately one of my favorite from him
- I love everything by Frost.
Syllables
From guest Brad (contact)
Anyone else notice that every line has 7 syllables and that there is a pattern of the number of syllables in a word in each line...each number represents the number of syllables....the first line is 1 1 1 2 2 as the 3rd and 5th are as well..as the 2nd line is 1 2 1 1 2 as the 4th and 6th are...is there any significance to this?Carpe Diem is awesome. Hands down.
From guest Katol (contact)
i really like this. it gives me the right to do anything... hehe/The Present
From guest Bert (contact)
Frost uses a character, Age, and the poetic voice to discuss the oft-repeated command of carpe diem. He gives full attention, in the narrative portion of the poem, to that very phrase. Age sees a couple, young to him, who pass by. Commanding them to be happy, he bids them not waste the pleasure of present youth. However, the poetic voice comes in to reconsider this suggestion. He sums up the argument of Age in the middle third of the poem. The turn comes with the question "But bid life seize the present?" Here he takes the common order and asks if one can actually seize the present. Can one be sensible in the present? The poetic voice suggests the answer is no. The present is always happening all at once, moving past and starting again, so that one's mind cannot contain it. We live life in the present, but our minds do not focus clearly enough fast enough to understand the present. This suggests that one cannot fully know the present, and, to go back to the title of the poem, this further implies that one cannot truly seize the day, because it is ever- present and ever-fleeting.Forward movement comes from Vision
From guest Steve (contact)
I think Frost is challenging us to never lose sight that once present is attained the future must be moved into. Everyone knows what a life with no goals for the future amounts to. When you aim at nothing you'll always attain it. He challenges us to know the present, enjoy it but look ahead while remembering the past. I believe he calls us to balance.Carpe Diem
From guest Bella (contact)
I think it's a very sentimental and almost a didactic poem. I believe what this is saying is that as we grow older, and as days go by, we lose sight of our immediate setting. We become oblivious to our happiness, instead we fall victims of our past and our future. In our minds we live in the future planning our grandeur thoughts and expectations whilst reflecting back on our regrets in the past. I love this bit : "With happiness should have it. And yet not know they have it." Thus we must "Carpe Diem" or "Seize the Day" right now. Live in the moment and don't be so distracted on obscured and abstract thoughts. Live in the present for your present will become you're past and your future the present.My favorite Carpe Diem poem, and perhaps my favorite poem by Frost. That desperate line "be happy, happy, happy"
From guest Laurie (contact)
- This poem at first seemed a bit confusing to me. but as i think on it, i find it makes more sense. however bustling and busy the present is. it is the present, and if you are to focused on the future, eventually there will be no past for you didnt take it in while it was the present. happiness is in the present, only a residue is left behind as time fades away.
- From guest Siri L. (contact)
In response to last comment- I think it's more about how we think too much about our future, regret too much of our past, and therefore the present is too much to think about so we might as well just live it instead of always analyzing it...hense Carpe Diem. - From guest Sarah M. (contact)
this poem is very contradicting. frost begins by saying carpe diem to the newlywed couple, but then contradicts the thought of carpe diem. he changes his thoughts that its not possible to actually 'seize the moment' because it keeps turnign into the past. therefore he comes to conclude that living in the present is to complicated,confusing,and almost impossible and you almost need to live in the futor. so looking back on the beginning, frost is almost mocking father time. well atleast thats just my thoughts Wool-gathering..
I like this quite a lot. It has the sound and feel of a well worn sweater. It is the priviledge of "Age" to ponder the past, there is more for the aged to ponder there than for the young. Age sees the present as too pressing upon each moment at a time when he is tired and wants to be still and enjoy his ponderings. Just a lovely poem of an old man remembering with a touch of envy perhaps, his lost years of youth and sensing so close the 'future' he seems to prefer NOT to imagine.- on seeing a loving young couple... the poet's heart wishes that they dont outgrow out of their love and happiness... to value and realize it each day and live in the present moment...
as usually people have the tendency to dwell in the past and sometimes... give much thought to plans and dreams of future... and miss the essence of life at the present moment ...
and he reasons ... perhaps it happens because of too much reality and practicality crowding the present. - how would you interpret this?
- I agree with Frost's assessment about the present, often. But sometimes we're lucky enough to recognize it as it's happening.
