Wind and Window Flower

"Wind and Window Flower" was written and Published in 1913. It appeared in A Boy's Will; the collection attempts to show "the various stages of a young man's outlook on life" (page 129).  Although the critic believed that Frost wasn't very successful for the entire book, "Wind and Window Flower" seems to succeed at depicting one of the stages. Parini does not give specific background to this poem, rather he talks only about the entire collection, A Boy's Will. 

Wind and Window Flower

Lovers, forget your love,

And list to the love of these,

She a window flower,

And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil

Was melted down at noon,

And the caged yellow bird

Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,

He could not help but mark,

And only passed her by

To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,

Concerned with ice and snow,

Dead weeds and unmated birds,

And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill, 

He gave the sash a shake,

As witness all within

Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed

To win her for the flight

From the firelit looking-glass

And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside

And thought of naught to say,

And morning found the breeze

A hundred miles away.

My Thoughts on the Poem:

"Wind and Window Flower" is a love poem about love that isn't realized, until it's too late, and thus can never be. The winter breeze is head over heels in love with the flower, but every time the tries to get the flower's attention she doesn't realize it. When the flower realizes that she loves the wind, he has already blown away from her, never to return. This poem is very human, rather than portraying two souls finding love that last's and is magical, it shows the much more common situation in which love doesn't work out. The Poem doesn't try to show that everything will be rainbows and gumdrops in the end, but rather that things may go wrong, and that things don't always work out.

-KEVIN M. HOOVER