The Silken Tent

The first line immediately displays Frost’s purpose; the poem is an extended metaphor between a woman and a silken tent.  Frost is not comparing a woman’s character to any old tent, but to a specific representation of a silken tent, lightly bending and swaying in the sunny breeze.  The dew, which would have soaked the cords, has dried and the cords are slack.  From the imagery in the first four lines of a tent leaning with the wind, readers sense a relaxed and comfortable woman.  The natural movement of the tent and its cords reflects the woman’s lack of tension, strain, and anxiety.  However, Frost stops us from thinking that the woman is a push-over or wimpy, easily “swayed” and influenced by changing “winds” or fads and fashion.  He describes her central pole as strong and supporting.  The tent’s cedar pole is parallel to a person’s backbone and, in this poem, conveys firmness in character. 

Frost points out that the woman’s strong character does not derive from any single thing, but from her “ties of love and thought to everyone on earth” or her connections with her family and friends, which also literally means the tent’s cords are tied to the ground.  The woman has many different investments, many different ties with many different people, yet she does not find her relationships suffocating or entangling.  In fact, she does not even notice how limiting all the obligations of so many different relationships can be.  Thus, the silken tent, the woman, is able to stand against the breeze because of its central support, her strong character, and the support of its ties, her relationships to those she loves. 

After the first reading, the poem seems formless, lacking rhythm, meter, and rhyme; however, this assumption is false.  Indeed, closer examination reveals the poem’s true rhyme scheme: a specific pattern in which the first line rhymes with the third, the second line rhymes with the fourth and so on.  The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.  It is interesting to notice that Frost does not forcibly rhyme words. Instead he lets the words flow so that the rhyme ends up being less noticeable, less stressed, and does not interrupt the poem.  In other poems we have read, rhymes are placed at the end of lines when a reader would take a natural pause, creating an emphatic rhyme.  Frost, though, avoids many end-stopping lines so rhymes are less noticeable.  For example at the end of line 2, it is unnatural to take a pause between “breeze” and “has.”  Most would read it as a single phrase “a sunny summer breeze has dried the dew”

Some people may still be convinced that Frost wrote a shapeless poem.  Actually, “The Silken Tent” is a Shakespearean sonnet.  Each line has ten syllables, and they follow a pattern of alternating weak and strong syllables, which is called iambic pentameter: At MIDday WHEN a SUNny SUMmer BREEZE.  However, Frost does take liberty with this strict meter.

Finally, it is important to note that there is only one period in the entire poem.  The whole work is a single, lengthy sentence covering fourteen lines.  I believe that iambic pantameter’s strict guidelines make composing poems difficult in the first place.  Frost has already achieved a conversational tone in a strict meter.  He has doubled his challenge by completing his poem in one sentence.  The poem itself actually reflects the subject within it.  The single sentence gracefully and naturally unfolds within Sonnet rules; Frost effortlessly conveys a metaphor within strict meter and rhyme.  The woman’s life is full and relaxed; she is free within her boundaries.  At times, she is not even aware of the boundaries because she is easily comfortable within them.

This poem is truly a product of “form is function.”  The shape and form of the poem actually reflect Frost’s language.  The magic of the poem is Frost’s ability to seamlessly blend form and content.  (663)