![]() Compare " The Need of Being Versed in Country Things" with Frost's " A Brook in the City" (1921) in this collection. Man does not need to eschew melancholic ruminations in the presence of nature, but he will be stronger for accepting that nature is not waiting to console or instruct him. Their song fee-bee may resemble a human sigh from "too much dwelling on what has been," but it is not a melancholy murmur it is a call to defend territory and procreate. ![]() They do not instead they "rejoice" in their nest, ironically provided by man, and in the progeny it will nurture. 1 But we who are un-versed in country things need them to weep with us at the fiery loss of manmade structures. The fiery destruction of the farmhouse and the desolation of the barn are irrelevant to the eastern phoebes, who in New England had long been known to favor abandoned farm buildings for their nests. Man may gain solace and insight from nature, but that is man's doing. Nature does not provide solace or insight for man. If we were, we would instinctively understand the last line and would long have accepted its reality. ![]() Pastoral in setting but modern in message, "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things" leads us to a demonstration that we, most likely, are not versed in country things. ![]() Robert Frost, " The Need of Being Versed in Country Things," poem, 1920. ![]()
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