Comparing Take Something Like A Star And Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World

Comparing Take Something Like a Star by Robert Frost and Love Calls Us to the Things of This World by Richard Wilbur

Robert Frost's "Take Something Like a Star" and Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" are two poems which both invoke the audience to become involved in life while taking inspiration and guidance from spiritual forces manifested in the visible world. Frost's poem uses Keat's "Bright Star" as a launching point for discussion while Wilbur recalls in his title a phrase from St. Augistine's Commentary on the Psalms; yet both authors present complete discussions without requiring from the reader a foreknowledge of the earlier works. For Frost the central image is a star, any star, whose illumination can

Frost writes in a facetious tone when describing God through the star that is seen. "It will not do to say of night, Since dark is what brings out your light", this quote describes how the star only shines when the sky is dark, meaning that God seems to only come when something bad arrives. The sincerity that is shown in Wilbur's poem is quite evident leaving no room for misinterpretation. He doesn't mock the glory of a spiritual presence, but writes wholeheartedly . At the end of each poem both authors agree on the same tone. Frost switches to a more earnest tone writing about when God does not seem to be there, he will always show up when called on. "We may take something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid". Both poems are wrote in a style that the speakers are looking at objects that cause them to think about how a spiritual force is amongst them. "'Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry, Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam and clear dances done in the sight of heaven'". Wilbur concentrates on the laundry and sees the hands of God wash us from our transgressions and as the clothesline laundry dances in the wind our souls dance "'in the sight of heaven'". Standing under a moon lit sky someone spots "the fairest

Diction is very important in both of the poems. The choice of words convey the way in which the poem is to be read. The poems emulate how spiritual forces can be manifested in our every day world, but how they are manifested is where diction comes in. "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" illustrates God in a genuine fashion using diction. "Impersonal breathing", shows how the soul is not separate from us but one with us. The play on words Frost uses is a great example of diction. "Wholly taciturn" when read aloud could be taken as holy silence, but when read you can see he means total silence illustrating gods void. Frost also uses the word stooping instead moving when describing God. "Not even stooping from its sphere..". This one word shows the power of diction to show his negative view on the theme. Wilbur also does the same word game, but he uses it to show his positive view of God being shown through the visible world. "Yet, as the sun acknowledges With a warm look…", the main word in the quote is sun, because it could be taken as the son of God when read aloud. Robert Frost's "Take Something Like a Star" and Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us