38. Misgiving / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost

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38. Misgiving

All crying, "We will go with you, O Wind!"

The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;

But a sleep oppresses them as they go,

And they end by bidding him stay with them.

Since ever they flung abroad in spring

The leaves had promised themselves this flight,

Who now would fain seek sheltering wall,

Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.

And now they answer this summoning blast

With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,

Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl

That drops them no further than where they were.

I only hope that when I am free,

As they are free, to go in quest

Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life

It may not seem better to me to rest.

• misgiving : 불안, 의혹
• foliage : 단풍, 잎
• fling : 바람, 던지다, 퍼붓다
• fain : 기꺼이 하는, 기꺼이
• thicket : 덤불, 얽힘
• whirl : 빙글빙글돌다

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불안

모든 낙엽이 외친다,"바람이여, 같이 갑시다!"

잎과 잎자루가 한 몸으로, 바람을 뒤따른다.

그러나 가노라면 졸음이 그들을 짓누르니,

마침내 그들은 바람에게 쉬어가자고 제의한다.

봄에 내던져지듯 세상에 나온 이래

잎들은 이런 비행을 예약했었지만,

그들은 이제 밤의 도피처로 담이나 덤불,

또는 우묵한 곳을 기꺼이 찾고픈 것이다.

그리고 이제 그들은 돌풍의 부름에

점점 힘없고 미약한 동작으로 응하거나,

기껏 망설이며 빙그르르 조금 휘돌 뿐이니,

있던 자리에서 머지않은 곳에 떨어지고 만다.

그들처럼 자유롭게, 삶의 경계선

너머의 지식을 찾아 갈 때가 되면,

내가 오롯이 희망하기는 더 보기 좋게

쉬지 않고 한 걸음에 가는 것이다.

-신재실 옮김-

단상(斷想): 동물이건 식물이건 모두 필멸의 운명이다. 그러기에 우리는 죽음 너머의 세계를 상정하고, 피안의 세계에 희망을 건다. 돌풍에 날리는 낙엽은 죽음의 사자에 끌려가는 인간의 혼령을 연상시킨다. 세상에 태어날 때 이미 예약되고, 모두가 함께하는 비행이기에 그리 서러울 것도 없다.

그러기에 나뭇잎들은 바람에게 빨리 다른 나라로 가자고 외친다. 하지만 밤이 되자 그들은 어둠이 무섭거나 지쳐서 졸음이 엄습하는 듯, 곧 그들은 바람에게 쉬어가자며, 계속해서 “담이나 덤불, 또는 우묵한 곳”을 찾아 웅크리고, 바람이 불어도 그저 제자리를 맴돈다. 운명을 조금이라도 늦추기를 바라는 듯 망설이는 모습이다.

사람도 마찬가지다. 죽음 앞에서 망설이지 않을 사람이 몇이나 되겠는가? 바람, 죽음의 사자(使者), 피안의 세계도 망설이는 낙엽이나 사람의 심정을 이해할 것 아닌가? 아마 그럴 것이다. 하지만 운명은 운명이다. 죽음은 해방이다.

그러기에 이 시의 화자는 죽음 앞에서 망설이지 말고 용감하게 무한의 세계를 향해 달려가기를 “오롯이” 희망한다. 하지만 그의 희망 또한 희망으로 끝나지 않을까?

-신재실 씀-

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youtu.be/WZRj1BOo7Kw

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About “the great misgiving” - Robert Frost

from "ROBERT FROST SPEAKING ON CAMPUS"

In beginning his April 10, 1958, lecture to the Great Issues Course at Dartmouth, Mr. Frost spoke of having at last fixed upon the designation for a collection of his poems that had not yet been brought forth in book form. It would, however, be another four years before the long-anticipated volume was finally published carrying as its titleIn the Clearing.

WHAT I’M GOINGto talk about is something I’ve been working toward. I always have a hard time naming a book, and it’s about time I had another book. My publishers expect one of me every seven years, but it’s past seven now. I’ve got to have a book for ’em pretty soon.

But I’ve been stalling. And they think from just laziness and good-for-nothingness, that I just can’t come to a point. But the real fact is I have to feel something that kind of—just for me, privately—pulls the book together.

They’re scattered poems that I write, around. People think I wrote a book calledNorth of Bostonand wrote it as a book. I didn’t. It’s just scattered poems that I pulled together under the headNorth of Boston.And it looks very well, even to outsiders, as a name. But usually the name means just something to me. It’s my reason to finally close the book and get it off my hands.

And I’ve finally got to it. Take you in on this: I’ve finally decided to call the bookThe Great Misgiving.You’d have to look far into the book to find what I mean by that. But I’ll tell you a little about it, what it means to me.

If I could, I’d have handed you for this affair just a littlemap, of about the size of this, of the whole world. (What I think they call a “Mercator’s Projection.” Is that the old name for it?) This would be the whole world, spread out here, exaggerated at both poles. It’s spread too wide at both poles, but it’s just map enough for us.

And then I’d ask you to make on it a black mark. It wouldn’t be much longer than ten inches. And it would begin in the west coast of Asia Minor, and it would stretch, black and rather broad, right across the Aegean, across Greece, across Italy, across Germany. It would be wide enough to take Germany, France, England—and then on to us; just to us.

This thing would be stretching west-northwest, sort of. And there’d be nothing else like it on the map. There couldn’t be anything else like it. It’s the only place where this belongs, this thing. It’s like a cinder path.

I’ll tell you where “the great misgiving” comes in. Only two peoples, Eastern and Western, have had this great misgiving. It belongs to us and becomes us, Eastern and Western—east of that place where I begin the black line and west of it to us; beginning, I like to say, around the Land of Moab or somewhere where the alphabet did—starting from scratch on the Moabite Stone. It’s a kind of a cinder track—starting from scratch on the Moabite Stone; if you get that.

And there’s nothing like it went the other direction. And Africa’s got nothing to do with it. If there’s anything of this in Africa, it’s for the far future; we don’t know.

But this misgiving that becomes us was taken in two ways, the Western way and the Eastern way. […] We have taken it our way, and they have taken it their way. And our way is as much as to say, “The greatest merit of all is to risk the spirit in substantiation, in plunging into matter.” That’s the greatest merit of all.

The second greatest merit would be so worried about the spirit that you’d just clasp your hands and drop on your knees and wait till you’re dead, for fear your spirit should be lost in a material world. That’s the Eastern way, waiting for Nirvana, hoping not to get born again—hoping not to get born again into this bad world. That’s the Eastern way. I presume to call that second best.

It’s well that we should have this misgiving, this fear for the spirit. And I’ve been saying lately to graduate schools when I met them: “Don’t ever let me hear you fellows in the graduate school talk about ‘materialism.’ You’re more in danger of losing the spirit of what you’re dealing, in your material, than almost anybody else.”

It’s the curse of the graduate school, that they get lost in their own material. They think their duty is material, of course. But of course the duty of all of us is to enter into the material. I’ve got to substantiate my claim to being here this morning, substantiate it. I’ve got to materialize it. (I want a different word for it from “materialism.” It’s “materiality.”)

I enter into the material every poem I write, every talk I make. I enter into the material, at the risk of the spirit. We recognize the spirit in various ways, by a show of vanity maybe (sometimes no more than that), by wit, by ideas—bymeaning;that’s the height of it all.

It’s a great wonder to me that the books produced in the graduate school are not thought meaningful enough for anybody to want to buy ’em, in this material world. That’s just speaking of them.

But the whole thing is that. And I say in verses in the book, a verse that goes like this:

• Even God’s descent
• Into flesh…

See, God descended into flesh, according to our Christian religion.—

• …God’s descent
• Into flesh was meant
• As a demonstration
• That the supreme merit Lay in risking spirit
• In substantiation.31

He had to substantiate; that is, He had to give meaning to the world.

Now, the two ways that you’ve got. One is to fear it so much, have the misgiving so strong, that you clasp your hands and just pray to be saved from this gross material world. And the other is—(We have a slang word, don’t we? I don’t know whether you ever heard it.)—the Western way has been to “duff” in. You see, duff in—(I presume that’s the same word as you get in “plum duff” and such as that; “duff into the dough.”)—go for it; go for the material, knowing the risk, feeling the risk.

The church has a lot to do with that misgiving, of course. Sometimes the church has stalled it. It’s had a stalling effect, it’s been so afraid of the material.

But, now, make this picture on the map, this charge, this great charge into the material that began with the alphabet, partly—“the greatest analysis of all analyses,” somebody said. Only once in the world.

These are the wonderful things, that these are so individual. Some man must have said—somewhere there on that coast or somewhere near Moab—said to himself, “Look at all these words we say.” He didn’t know how many they were. But he said: “Look at all these words we say. If you stop to analyze them, they can all be reduced to twenty sounds.”

Wasn’t that a feat of analysis? Nobody else ever did it. TheEast never did it. This happened right on that verge there, coming our way.

That was the part of the thing that gave the spirit its chance, a written language. A B C and 1 2 3, those two things had so much to do with it.

But this venture into the material that I call “materiality,” not “materialism,” was an adventure of the spirit into matter, to see if the spirit couldn’t be kept. And it’s kept wherever there’s meaning kept. And it’s lost wherever it goes into just a dump of material.

I was running my eye over a bookcase just before I came, and I saw so many titles—(’Twas books of this time, they seemed to be.)—so many titles that showed this that I could call this “misgiving,” this fear of being lost in the material.

I’m going to see somebody in Washington who’s brother I remember seeing years ago out in Wyoming, up at Laramie, up seven thousand feet nearer heaven. He said to me—(A fine man; he put his hand to his head.) “I’m confused, aren’t you?” That’s what he meant, you know; he was losing the meaning.

And when you talk about “existentialism,” it just means that. (The word for it in the church is “acedia.”) It’s a spirit giving up. An existentialist is a person that wouldn’t be bothered to commit suicide. He wouldn’t be bothered. And the thing is, it’s the failure—just for him and all around him, as he sees it—the failure of the spirit; that there isn’t meaning enough to anything for him to go on with it. […]

I’m not here to find fault, am I? And all I’m saying is that the meaning when lost is “acedia” or “existential” or whatever you want to call it—acedia or existential.

Now, picture it this way, again on this map—this cinder path that I’ve made across it. It’s been the great adventure into the material, at the risk of the spirit. And I call it “materiality,” unless it fails; and then I call it “materialism.”

If I succeed with my material—in writing a poem or in making a speech—if I succeed with my material, I’m dealing with the material, of course, and I’m a material artist. And if I fail, I’m a saddened, sad materialist; that’s all.

And so with your being at college, your being anywhere. Your being in Washington; your being President of the United States—when you lie alone at night, the thing that concerns you, the misgiving, is whether you’re making this almost unwieldy mass, the United States—with a hundred and sixty million people—whether you’re putting something into it, and whether you can go before Congress tomorrow and help put some meaning into it.

And one of the amusing things to me is that the Eastern world has just sort of been lately waked up to our way of doing it. And they’ve started wondering if ours isn’t the better way to take the misgiving. They’ve taken it one way, and we’ve taken it another. And they’ve come West to find out whether our way is better than their way.

Maybe theirs is better. Maybe I better not say. I think ours is better, probably. That’s in my heart. But it might be we’re wrong. Maybe the best way is to go into a cell somewhere and pray our time out. Or will weplunge?Will we go on with the plunging way?

It’s somewhere in the poem, the longish poem somewhere in the book, that I take the title from:

Westerners inherit

• A design of living
• Deeper into matter…
• You see:
• Deeper into matter—
• Not without some patter
• Of the great misgiving.31

You see, always worrying about the spirit—as we should. Have we kept it? Are we keeping it? And that’s without getting religious about it at all. I brought God into it, but the point is justmeaning,plain meaning.

There are lulls in it, when you’re scared entirely. There are lulls in your life, when you wonder what it’s all about—what it’s all about. Are you acting as if you had some clue to what it’s about—some clue?

It needn’t come too clear, but the very confidence you have in being here, the very confidence you have in not committing suicide, means that you think there’s some sort of meaning. There’s something to go on with—in fear and trembling. […]

I belong to the West. I’m not interested in the detachment and the dispassionateness that saves a man from getting born again. That’s the Eastern way, to get off the wheel. You know, according to that, even when you’re an angel, you’re not safe. You can get born again and be a monkey. You gotta look out. And the way out of it is detachment, this fear of the material that detaches you from everything, takes the passion all out of your life, the passion for science or for everything—for action; the passion for action.

Finish the picture; then I’ll change the subject. This cinder path, starting from scratch on the Moabite Stone, makes it a sort of a hundred-yard dash that the Western race has made, right across Greece and all—(Call it a hundred-yard dash.)—to us, ending in a pole vault—always in fear for everything; fear for the track, fear for yourself and everything.

Physical condition has something to do with it, too. You’d think it might not be. If you got sick enough you might write like an existentialist, I suppose, and might prevail that way, sick-spirited.

Remember the church has that wonderful word about it.It’s so old, that “acedia.” Look it up. See how deep a meaning it had for monks and priests and for the church.

Only the great people of the world have had the misgiving, East and West. And they’ve taken it two ways. And whether ours is the right way or theirs is the right way is for someone else to say. I’m not saying. I incline. I’m Western, sort of. But it might be that we could be wrong about it. Maybe we’re going to lose the spirit, in this “derring do.”31

I’ve lived longer than you have. I met the people that made the “pole vault,” the Wright brothers. Look at us now. But that’s all into the material. That’s all; it’s a venture of the spirit into the material.

Do we carry meaning with it? Is the spirit with it? Always scare yourself once in a while for fear it isn’t in your work, isn’t in your life.

There are prescribed ways in the world for being kind of sure that you’re doing something that means something. You can be a doctor or lawyer or Indian chief, you know—some of those things; something that you fall into that has sort of meaning already, been given meaning—and teaching and writing poetry and coaching teams. […]

It’s dangerous for me to say any poems after that, isn’t it? Because, have I put enough meaning into them? I’m a materialist, and the most physical part of my poems are the parts I like best, where they’re reallyphysical.There are other words for that, but I like it: “physical.”

But it’s got to go beyond that. Take a matter like this. We know that the one thing that’s a sign of a real person is that he wants to win. Whether he plays cards or whether he goes into games or into a word contest or something, but he likes to win. Then, he has to find out what it means to win.

In some of these subjects you study, what is winning?Is “A” winning—or “B” winning enough? Is that really victory?

The Romans dragged Christians to the altar of victory. If they wouldn’t bow down to that, they fed ’em to the lions. But they wanted ’em to bow to the idea of victory. […] That’s vitality, to want to win.

But now beyond that—to give that meaning—beyond that is not to be made a fool of by winning or by losing, either. (You can be made a fool of by both.) And then you get up into the spiritual, where the high meaning is, and you say: “Well, what do I want more than victory? Well, I want to behave myself in victory or defeat, ’cause you can have either.”

This is where the spiritual begins. You say: “Why do I want to behave myself? It’s expected of me.” Just say that much. “It seems to be expected of me that I shan’t be made a fool of by either victory or defeat.” And now you’re up in the spiritual world. And the next thing you know you’re at the top of the Golden Stairs.

—at Goucher College, November 29, 1950:

NOBODY EVERtold me anything about my poems that made me write anything any different. […]

My best critic is the other poems that have been written. Every little while I clear my eyes all away and take a fresh look at something that others have written in the past. […]

And then sometimes I go directly from something somebody else has written, other things, and look at mine with that same desire to be clear and face it. And that’s about all it ever amounts to. That’s the only criticism I ever know.

from "ROBERT FROST SPEAKING ON CAMPUS"