In a Disused Graveyard

Robert Frost's "In A Disused Graveyard," from his volume, "New Hampshire," describes, on the onset, a common scene in New England - an old, unkempt graveyard, perhaps centuries old, next to the side of a throughway on a hill, as the description of "grass tread" in the first line and "on the hill" on the second line indicates. However, in a slight bit of deception, it describes a graveyard not completely "disused" as in one that is no longer used in the purpose of mourning, but rather, the purpose of burials, as the first stanza mentions that "the graveyard draws the living still/but never anymore the dead," which might indicate that there would still be mourners to the buried. This can also be interpreted as a fascination of his own, and certainly not unique, fascination with history, best reflected in the old graveyards of New England, visited more for their history - birth dates and death dates show birth rates, death rates, as well as the preferred usage of language during the time or the circumstances of the burial rather than sentimental values of family members visiting it.

Frost reinforced his notion of, if not an out-right fascination of the epitaphs on the tombstones, in the second stanza, as he noted that the living "come today to read the stones and go away" while the dead "will come to stay". He mentions nothing about mourning, and one would think that it would not be an oversight, as death have traditionally been a very significant event, but rather, an over-emphasis on the aspect of curiosity such gravestones present. Indeed, if the quoted verses in the second stanza are present on a tombstone, it would be oddly but befitting prophetic that graveyards turn into historical monuments than places of mourning and remembrance. "To read the stones and go away" and to "go away" without any sense of mourning present in the writing show that the epitaph was written, almost in spite and mockery, of the role the tombstone and its epitaph eventually falls under. This spite and mockery is especially emphasized in the line, "tomorrow the dead will come to stay," that follows, as it presents an air of reminding one of the inevitability of death and one's ultimate fate into falling into a curiosity on the side of the road, a historical landmark if important, a mere sideshow if a rusted stone on the side of a highway.

The third stanza shows that the quotes in the second stanza are indeed, quotes from an existing tombstone, which shows a mocking tone from the dead - a bit of irony as only the living can carve the epitaphs, but perhaps the living associated with the dead in this case have an understanding of this consequence of the passage of time in a graveyard, that it would be disused eventually, that it would eventually become a curiosity not for the mourners but for the passer-by. The poet ponders upon the fact that the dead with the aforementioned epitaph and connects it to the possibility of it driving away further burials, especially in the third line, "how no one dead will seem to come," and the forth line, "[w]hat is it men are shrinking from?" Men, in this case, are the dying men who would have a choice of burial, but picked somewhere else.

The forth stanza shows some sort of twisted reasoning with the ultimately inanimate - the stones, and by association, the dead. This reflects back to the quotes of the second stanza and third stanzas, where the reminder of the visitors, especially mourners, that death is inevitable, drives some sort of possibly primeval fear of death into them, and out of that graveyard and into another one, one with a less obviously coarse reminder of the impending mortality. The poet, in this case, would not merely be telling the stones that "men hate to die" but rather, the reader, that "men hate to die", and would rather not be reminded any more than they have to of their own mortality. The stopping of burials in the disused graveyard, coupled by the only visitors to the graveyard being curious visitors of no relations to the buried, would, when lending some personification to the dead and their tombs, be an elaborate ruse that in their little inanimate world, the only inanimate already exists would keep on existing, and the passers-by would be, in a sense, inanimate too, as they will keep on existing as well, in different individual form, but as a collective, alive and well, never another burial to add to the parade of the dead in the graveyard. It is obviously a lie, but an anthropomorphic tomb would probably interpret it as the end of death as a permanent fact and death as a sort of roadside attraction, hence the "disuse".

The language Frost used in the poem shares many similarities to his other poems regarding New England, death, cemeteries, and the unique feel of winter in New England - a distinct isolationism. This poem certainly is about the isolation of the dead from its own kind, the fellow dead, and in its place, the living. New England's abundance of graveyards gives the poem a rather vivid image, especially since so many are old and disused, due to the long history of settlement. A few words signify Frost's overt fascination of the living visiting the graveyards: the graveyards "draws the living still," and their impetus to venture up an explicitly unkempt, disused graveyard with the phrase "grassy tread". The passage of time and death go hand in hand in this poem. Words signifying time such are scattered about, from "today", "tomorrow" - both similes signifying a long period of time. The phrase in the third stanza, "Yet can't help marking all the time" shows a slow decay of the tombstone. The mark of disuse, decay, and death is constant in the poem.

Frost reflected men's regard for death too - a duality of both an attempt to trivialize it by making disused graveyards as curiosities and a fear of death, most markedly by saying "Men hate to die", which would not only be a "clever" statement, but undoubtedly true, at least in his opinion. The epitaph on the tombstone alone seems to deter further burials, showing man's inability to deal with the brutal truth of death laid out so frankly and candidly in front of them in words - especially with the word "shrinking" in the third stanza. At the same time, as time passes, the graveyard becomes an attraction for the living to see and then leave, showing almost a disregard for the dead and having their lives be presented only in a few lines on a stone and the knowledge that they've existed and now only exist as small marks, perhaps some memories, or mere statistics of dates of birth and death. Despite the light tone of the last stanza, Frost's intent in showing men's desire to rather be onlookers rather than participants in death is quite obvious. Words like "hate" and "forever" have a degree of absoluteness to them. The fact that he thinks that they'd "believe the lie" also make it seem that the graves want this separation as well, to believe that such a thing is possible when personified. By the end of the poem, the dead seem content with not having any more permanent company. Ultimately, Frost in the poem quite clearly indicated that the dead are more content with the situation of not having any more burials, despite their bewilderment of it, than men's take on their own mortality, from which they "shrink" from and end up using another graveyard, using the disused one as a piece of history with no apparent sentimental value attached to it.