23. West-Running Brook / West-Running Brook(1928) - Robert Frost

[esse]

West-Running Brook

"Fred, where is north?"

                       "North? North is there, my love.

The brook runs west."

                       "West-Running Brook then call it."

(West-Running Brook men call it to this day.)

"What does it think it's doing running west

When all the other country brooks flow east

To reach the ocean? It must be the brook

Can trust itself to go by contraries

The way I can with you―and you with me―

Because we're-we're-I don't know what we are.

What are we?"

                    "Young or new?"

                                 "We must be something.

We've said we two. Let's change that to we three.

As you and I are married to each other,

We'll both be married to the brook. We'll build

Our bridge across it, and the bridge shall be

Our arm thrown over it asleep beside it.

Look, look, it's waving to us with a wave

To let us know it hears me."

                                    "Why, my dear,

That wave's been standing off this jut of shore―"

(The black stream, catching on a sunken rock,

Flung backward on itself in one white wave,

And the white water rode the black forever,

Not gaining but not losing, like a bird

White feathers from the struggle of whose breast

Flecked the dark stream and flecked the darker pool

Below the point, and were at last driven wrinkled

In a white scarf against the far-shore alders.)

"That wave's been standing off this jut of shore

Ever since rivers, I was going to say,

Were made in heaven. It wasn't waved to us."

"It wasn't, yet it was. If not to you,

It was to me―in an annunciation."

"Oh, if you take it off to lady-land,

As't were the country of the Amazons

We men must see you to the confines of

And leave you there, ourselves forbid to enter―

It is your brook! I have no more to say."

"Yes, you have, too. Go on. You thought of something."

"Speaking of contraries, see how the brook

In that white wave runs counter to itself.

It is from that in water we were from

Long, long before we were from any creature.

Here we, in our impatience of the steps,

Get back to the beginning of beginnings,

The stream of everything that runs away.

Some say existence like a Pirouot

And Pirouette, forever in one place,

Stands still and dances, but it runs away;

It seriously, sadly, runs away

To fill the abyss's void with emptiness.

It flows beside us in this water brook,

But it flows over us. It flows between us

To separate us for a panic moment.

It flows between us, over us, and with us.

And it is time, strength, tone, light, life, and love―

And even substance lapsing unsubstantial;

The universal cataract of death

That spends to nothingness―and unresisted,

Save by some strange resistance in itself,

Not just a swerving, but a throwing back,

As if regret were in it and were sacred.

It has this throwing backward on itself

So that the fall of most of it is always

Raising a little, sending up a little.

Our life runs down in sending up the clock.

The brook runs down in sending up our life.

The sun runs down in sending up the brook.

And there is something sending up the sun.

It is this backward motion toward the source,

Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,

The tribute of the current to the source.

It is from this in nature we are from.

It is most us."

                              "Today will be the day

You said so."

                            "No, today will be the day

You said the brook was called West-Running Brook."

"Today will be the day of what we both said."

• jut : 돌출하다, 돌기
• annunciation : 성수태 고지, 포고
• swerve : 빗나가다, 정도를 벗어나다, 곡구

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서쪽으로 흐르는 시냇물

“프레드, 북쪽이 어느 쪽이요?”

​                             “북쪽? 여보, 북쪽은 저쪽이에요.

그 시냇물은 서쪽으로 흐르는 거예요.”

                             “그럼 서쪽으로 흐르는 시냇물이라 부릅시다.”

(사람들은 오늘날까지 그것을 서쪽으로 흐르는 시냇물이라 부른다.)

“이 고장의 다른 시냇물은 모두 동쪽으로 흘러서

바다에 이르는데, 그건 서쪽으로 흘러서 무얼 한다고

생각하는 걸까요? 그건 내가 당신과―그리고 당신이 나와

정반대로 가듯이, 그 시냇물도 정반대 방향으로

갈 수 있다고 스스로 믿는 게 틀림없어요―

왜냐하면 우리가―우리가―우리가 무엇인지는 모르겠지만.

우리가 무엇이죠?”

               “젊은가요? 아니면 현대적인가요?”

                                     “우리가 우리 둘이라고 말한

어떤 것이 우리인 게 틀림없어요. 그걸 우리 셋으로 바꿉시다.

당신과 내가 서로 결혼했듯이,

우리 둘이 그 시냇물과 결혼합시다. 그 옆에서

우리가 잠을 자면서 그 위에 팔을 걸쳐서

그것을 가로지르는 다리를 놓읍시다.

저거 봐요, 그게 물결로 우리에게 손짓하여

내 말이 들린다고 알리고 있잖아요.”

                                    “여보, 무슨 소리요,

저 물결은 이 냇가에서 멀리 떨어진 곳에서 너울거리잖아요―”

(검은 물결이 움푹 함몰된 바위를 치면,

그게 흰 물결 되어 거꾸로 자신을 후려치고,

그리하여 흰 물이 영원히 바위를 타니,

얻지도 잃지도 않는 것이, 마치 새가 흰 날개로

열심히 날갯짓 하면서 그 가슴으로 검은 시냇물을

얼룩지게 하고 그 지점 아래의 더 검은 웅덩이를

얼룩지게 하고는, 마침내 대안(對岸)의 오리나무를 향해

구겨진 흰 스카프를 흔드는 것 같다.)

“내가 말하려 한 것은, 하늘에서 강물이 만들어진 이래로,

저 물결은 이 냇가에서 멀리 떨어진 곳에서 너울거렸다는 거예요.

그것이 우리에게 손짓한 것이 아니에요.”

“아니었죠. 하지만 손짓했어요. 당신에게 아니라면,

내게 손짓했어요―수태고지(受胎告知)로 말이에요.”

“오, 만약 당신이 그것을 숙녀의 나라,

말하자면 여성 전사들만의 나라로 비약시킨다면,

우리 남자들은 당신을 그 나라 국경까지 배웅하여

그곳에 남겨두고, 우리는 출입금지 되어야겠구려―

그것은 당신의 시냇물이오! 난 더 이상 할 말이 없소.”

“아뇨, 당신도 할 말 있어요. 어서 말하세요. 당신 무언가 생각했잖아요.”

“상반(相反)의 기운들을 말하자면, 저 시냇물이

저렇게 흰 물결로 되돌아서 달리는 것을 보세요.

우리가 어느 동물에서 유래하기 오래 전, 아주 오래 전,

우리가 출생한 것도 바로 물속의 저 기운에서였지요.

여기서 우리는, 생성의 단계들을 다 감내하지 못하고,

시작의 시작으로 되돌아가는 것이니,

그게 바로 흘러가는 만물의 강이지요.

어떤 이는 말하기를 존재는 발끝돌기

즉 피루엣처럼, 영원히 한 곳에,

가만히 서서 춤추지만, 흐른다는 거예요.

그것은 진지하게, 슬프게, 흘러서

심연의 공간(空間)을 공(空)으로 채우지요.

그것이 이 시냇물에서는 우리 옆을 흐르지만,

그것은 우리의 도처에 흐릅니다. 그것은 우리 사이를 흘러

공포의 한 순간 동안 우리를 떼어놓기도 하지요.

그것은 우리 사이로, 위로, 그리고 우리와 함께 흐르죠.

그리고 그것은 시간, 힘, 강건, 빛, 생명, 그리고 사랑이고―

그리고 없는 것으로 흐르는 있는 것이지요.

그것은 그 자체가 유감이지만 신성한 듯이,

그 자체의 신비로운 저항 말고는,

단순히 비켜서지 않고 되던지는 몸짓 이외에는,

아무런 저항도 없이 무(無)로 사라지는,

보편적인 죽음의 폭포이지요.

그것은 이렇게 자신을 되던지면서

그 낙하의 대부분이 항상

자신을 약간 올리고, 약간 높이지요.

우리의 생명은 시계를 올리며 흘러내리고,

시냇물은 우리의 생명을 올리며 흘러내리죠.

태양은 시냇물을 올리며 흘러내리고요.

그리고 태양을 올리는 어떤 것이 있지요.

우리 거의가 자신을 발견함은, 흐름을 거슬러,

근원을 향해 이렇게 역류하는 것,

근원을 향한 흐름의 경배(敬拜)에서지요.

우리가 탄생하는 것은 자연의 역류에서이고요.

그것이 우리의 대부분이지요.”

                        “오늘은 당신이 그렇게

말한 날이 될 것이오.”

                          “아뇨, 오늘은 당신이

그 시냇물을 서쪽으로 흐르는 시냇물이라 부르자고 말한 날이 될 것이오.”

“오늘은 우리 둘이 말한 것의 날이 될 것이오.”

-신재실 옮김-

단상(斷想): 이 시는 뉴잉글랜드의 한 농장에 있는 시냇물의 흐름에 대한 젊은 부부의 관찰과 논평으로 구성되어 있다. 검게 흐르는 시냇물이 바윗돌에 부딪혀 흰 물결로 역류하여 자신을 후려친다. 이런 흐름과 거스름의 운동에서 남편은 음양의 원리를 발견하고, 인간의 생성과 진화도 바로 그런 원리에서 비롯된 것이라고 생각하는 것 같다.

그가 말하는 “물속의 저 기운” 즉 시냇물의 흐름에 대항하는 흰 물결은 베르그송이 말하는 생명력(生命力)과 다른 것이 아니다. 인간의 근원은 바로 이런 생명력이다. 그러나 우주는 전반적으로 계속 하향(下向)한다. 베르그송은 인간은 진행의 방해를 받으면서도 멈추지 않고 거침없이 통과하는 특권적인 위치에 있다고 했다. 그러나 프로스트는 그렇게 낙관적이지는 않는다. “그것은 우리 사이로, 위로, 그리고 우리와 함께 흐르죠.”란 구절이 암시하듯, 인간도 물질의 흐름에 어쩔 수 없이 종속되어 있고, 실재적인 모든 것 즉 “시간, 힘, 강건, 빛, 생명, 그리고 사랑”까지도 쇠(衰)하여 “없는 것”이 되어 버린다.

그러나 프로스트는 이렇게 쇠퇴하고 있는 우주에 내재하는 신비로운 저항의 창조원리를 서둘러 제시한다. “없는 것‘으로 향하는 보편적 추세의 역전, 즉 “되던지는 몸짓”을 강조한다. 이 몸짓은 생명의 존재를 설명한다. 말하자면 프로스트는 베르그송의 생명철학을 수용해서, 만물의 유전에 저항하는 생명력의 발휘를 종교적 차원으로 끌어올리고 있다.

계속해서 프로스트는 생명력의 저항의 과정이나 창조의 과정에서 일어나는 에너지의 손실 문제를 제기한다. 물질과 에너지는 파괴될 수 있지만, 당연한 결론으로, 창조될 수 있다는 생각이다. 여기서 창조나 저항의 과정을 “올리기sending up”로 표현하는데, 이것은 앞에서 사용한 “되던지기throwing back”과 다를 바 없다.

어쨌든 프로스트는 창조 과정에서 줄어든 에너지의 공급원으로 거슬러 올라가면서, 시간에서 출발하여 태양까지 에너지의 사슬고리를 언급하고 있다. 시간에서 태양까지 언급한 것은 물리적 에너지를 뜻하고 있다고 할 수 있다. 그러나 이런 에너지의 최종적 근원은 무엇인가?

프로스트는 “그리고 태양을 올리는 어떤 것이 있지요.”라고 말함으로써 최종적 에너지원을 막연히 “어떤 것something”으로 표현하고 있다. 이것은 신 자신을 의미하는 것이 분명하다. 태양에 에너지를 공급하는 신의 에너지는 영원한 것인가? 이 문제에 대한 해답은 이 시에 나와 있지 않다.

결국 프로스트는 인간의 근원을 신으로 인정하고 다시 신께 돌아가고자 하는 소망을 밝힌다. 시간을 거슬러 근원으로 향하는 내적 자아로의 여행을 통해 최종적으로는 혼란을 뛰어 넘어 온전한 사람이 되어야 하는 것이다.

-신재실 씀-

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16. 致虛極(비움을 지극히 하고)


致虛極, 守靜篤,
萬物竝作, 吾以觀復,
夫物芸芸, 各復歸其根,
歸根曰靜, 是謂復命,
復命曰常, 知常曰明,
不知常, 妄作凶,
知常容, 容乃公, 公乃王, 王乃天, 天乃道,
道乃久, 沒身不殆.

25. 有物混成(혼돈 속에 이루어진 무엇인가 있음에)

有物混成, 先天地生, 
寂兮寥兮,獨立不改, 周行而不殆, 
可以爲天下母,
吾不知其名, 字之曰道, 强爲之名曰大,
大曰逝, 逝曰遠, 遠曰反,
故道大, 天大, 地大, 王亦大,
域中有四大, 而王居其一焉,
人法地, 地法天, 天法道, 道法自然.

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Where Is the West-Running Brook Flowing?

Robert Frost in Taoist Perspective

YIN QIPING and He CHANG

Abstract: Some critics have argued that the commonality between Frost’s poetic philosophy and Taoism lies in “a quest for a thorough freedom,” namely, freeing oneself from the bonds of nature society and the self. While there is validity in such a view, their interpretation seems a bit too reductive in the sense that too much emphasis is given to the tendency, in both Frost’s and Taoist philosophy, to Chu Shi (to renounce the world), while this tendency is subtly balanced by a willingness to Ru Shi (to accept the world). The present paper, therefore, seeks to examine the way in which Robert Frost bears affinities to Taoism in the aspect of Ru Shi as well as that of Chu Shi. “West-Running Brook,” with its central image of the brook which is at once water and road, offers itself as a good point of entry into the similarities between the themes of Frost and such philosophical ideas as proposed by either Lao Tzu or Zhuang Tzu, and makes us realize Frost’s balanced philosophical attitudes toward life.

Quite a few scholars have touched upon the affinity between Robert Frost (1874-1963) and Taoism. Cheng Aimin, for instance, once maintained that Frost “had been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the philosophical thinking of Lao Tzu and Zhuang Tzu” (Cheng Aiming 1996, 80). Few people, however, with the exception of Hong Qi, have taken an in-depth look at the similarities between the themes of Frost and such philosophical ideas as proposed by either Lao Tzu or Zhuang Tzu. In an article on the resemblance between the themes of Frost’s poems and Zhuang Tzu’s philosophical vision, Hong Qi argues that their commonality lies in “a quest for a thorough freedom,” namely, freeing oneself from the bonds of nature, society and the self (Hong Qi 2004, 164-6). Although there is validity in Hong Qi’s views, her interpretation seems a bit simplistic. She gives too much emphasis to the tendency, in both Frost’s and Taoist philosophy, to Chu Shi(to renounce the world), and neglects the fact that this tendency is subtly balanced by a readiness for Ru Shi (to accept the world). It is the aim of the present paper, therefore, to analyze the way in which Robert Frost bears affinities to Taoism in both the aspect of Ru Shi and that of Chu Shi.

The notions of Chu Shi and Ru Shi are closely related to the key concept of Taoism, namely, the Tao. According to Lao Tzu, the Tao is a universal, irresistible and all-inclusive law which determines the motion of all the substances in the universe, and this belief is expressed in Chapter 51 of Tao Te Ching, in which Lao Tzu describes the Tao as the mother of everything, or the origin of all the things in the universe, for “Tao gave them birth,” and “[t]he ‘power’ of Tao reared them, shaped them according to their kinds, perfected them, giving to each its strength” (Lao Tzu 1997, 109; 生之;道畜之,物形成,势成之). Therefore, “of the ten thousand things there is not one that does not worship Tao and do homage to its ‘power’” (Lao Tzu 1997, 109;是以万物莫不尊道而贵德). Chapter 25 contains an interesting attempt to categorize the nameless Tao or “Way ”:

• There was something formless yet complete, that existed before heaven and earth […]. Its true name we do not know; ‘Way’isthe by-name that we give it. Were I forced to say to what class of things it belongs I should call it Great. (Lao Tzu 1997, 53;有物混成,先天地生.吾不知其名,字之曰“ 道”,强为之名曰“ 大”)

Interestingly, Robert Frost’s poetic philosophy reveals a similar preoccupation with the nameless ‘Way’ which falls into the category of “by-names,” as we shall see in the analysis below.

One stumbling block to a comparative study of Frost and Taoism is the difficulty of tracing the genealogy of influences. Only vague speculative thinking has hitherto been done as to how Frost came under the influence of Taoism. No solid evidence seems to have been produced which can point to the direct impact of the ancient Chinese philosophy on Frost. Is then an approach to Frost from a Taoist perspective legitimate? It is our argument that the legitimacy of such an approach is twofold. First, Robert Frost lived in an era when ancient Chinese philosophy had long been one of the shaping forces of western literatures, and there is plenty of evidence with regard to the influences of Taoist thinking on a number of western writers who have in turn influenced Frost in one way or another. It is now universally acknowledged that transcendentalists have left their imprints on Frost, who once praised Emerson’s “Uriel” as the “best western poem yet” (Parini / Miller 2005, 99). Chang Yaoxing has pointed out that “Frost did write very much in the Wordsworthian tradition, and there is a good deal of Emerson in him” (Chang Yaoxin 2002, 268). Huang Zongying has also affirmed this conclusion by suggesting that “Emerson’s doctrine lies behind Frost’s continuous and instinctive sense of correspondences between his ‘outer’ and ‘inner’weather”(Huang Zongying 2000, 149). And traces of Chinese culture are visible in the works of Emerson, who “copied aphorisms from Confucius in his Journals, [and] mentioned Confucius in his translation of selected sayings of Confucius (such as from The Analects) in TheDial” (Toming 2002, 90). Furthermore, the period of Emerson’s lifetime witnessed an increasing interest in and passion towards Taoism. The first English translation of Tao Te Ching appeared in 1868, followed by the publication of almost a hundred versions of its kind in the West (Zhao Yiheng 2003, 315). Such an important cultural trend, for such a sensitive and erudite scholar as Emerson, could not have gone unheeded. The hypothesis seems legitimate, therefore, that Frost’s similarity with Taoism emanates indirectly from the influence of transcendentalism which is synthesized from several cultural sources, the Taoist philosophy not the least among them.

Second, Frost’s poems abound in details that seem inspired by those in Taoist works such as Tao Te Ching. Of all the striking similarities, two images are worthy of particular attention, namely, the images of ‘road/way’ and ‘water.’ Just as these two images form part and parcel of the Taoist philosophy, so do they occupy a predominant position in Frost’s poetics. The surprisingly similar ramifications centering round the images above, in both Frost’s poems and Taoist works, compel close examination and legitimize a meticulous comparative study.

“West-Running Brook,” with its central image of a brook which is at once water and road, offers itself as a good point of entry into this investigation. The brook, being both a metaphor and a synecdoche, is nothing short of a key to the true understanding of Frost, who preferred to call himself a “synecdochist” and once gave the following definition of poetry: “Poetry is simply made of metaphor […]. Every poem is a new metaphor inside or it is nothing” (Frost 1995, 786). For him, metaphor is “the height of poetry, the height of all thinking, the height of all poetic thinking, that attempt to say matter in terms of spirit and spirit in terms of matter” (Cox / Lathem 1968, 41). All this is reminiscent of a saying in ancient Chinese philosophy, namely, “to set up an image to make the most of the significance” (立象以尽意). This is no mere coincidence, and we are thus once more justified in concentrating on the meandering brook of Frost.

1. Chu Shi: Frost as a “Terrifying” Poet

“West-Running Brook,” like many other poems, confirm‎s Lionel Trilling’s well-known claim that Frost’s universe is “a terrifying one” and that Frost himself is “a terrifying poet” (Trilling 1959, 445). The “terrifying” tone begins right with the title in itself and the opening scene: the brook that Fred and his bride are contemplating runs west, contrary to the direction of “all the other country brooks” flowing “east to the ocean” (Frost 1995, 236). Throughout the poem a sense of fear and helplessness can be detected, and a seemingly sinister aspect looms large, particularly in the following lines:

• It is from that in water we were from
• Long, long before we were from any creature.
• Here we, in our impatience of the steps,
• Get back to the beginning of beginnings,
• The stream of everything that runs away.
• Some say existence like a Pirouot
• And Pirouette, forever in one place,
• Stands still and dances, but it runs away,
• It seriously, sadly, runs away
• To fill the abyss’ void with emptiness.
• It flows beside us in this water brook,
• But it flows over us. It flows between us
• To separate us for a panic moment.
• It flows between us, over us, and with us.
• And it is time, strength, tone, light, life, and love–
• And even substance lapsing unsubstantial;
• The universal cataract of death
• That spends to nothingness–andunresisted,
• Save by some strange resistance in itself[…]
• (“West-Running Brook,” ll. 45-63)

Here the destructive power of water could not be more obvious, what with “The universal cataract of death / That spends to nothingness–andunresisted” and “existence” that “seriously, sadly, runs away / To fill the abyss’ void with emptiness.”

On a personal level, the brook/water provides the platform on which Fred and his bride can communicate with each other. A brook is a road on which human beings can travel. In the case of our poem, the brook implies a new road of life for a newly married couple and symbolizes a quest that would presumably result in their marital relationship growing to maturity and harmony. Unfortunately, however, their communication fails. What should be a moment of mutual understanding is revealed as the physical conjunction of two people whose thoughts are running on different tracks. The wife’s thoughts are characterized by wishful thinking:

• As you and I are married to each other,
• We’ll both be married to the brook. We’ll build
• Our bridge across it, and the bridge shall be
• Our arm thrown over it asleep beside it.
• Look, look, it’s waving to us with a wave,
• To let us know it hears us.
• (“West-Running Brook,” ll. 16-21)

But Fred the husband sees just the opposite:

• That wave’s been standing off this jut of shore
• Ever since rivers, I was going to say,
• Were made in heaven. It wasn’t waved to us.
• (“West-Running Brook,” ll. 32-4)

Whereas the wife holds on to her views, Fred remains uninfluenced and even becomes ironical:

• Oh, if you take it off to lady-land,
• As’t were the country of the Amazons
• We men must see you to the confines of
• And leave you there, ourselves forbid to enter,–
• It is your brook! I have no more to say.
• (“West-Running Brook,” ll. 37-41)

The failure of communication is obviously a sign of alienation which is made poignant by the foregrounded image of the brook, suggesting both the unruliness of water and the perils of travel on a road, be it a road of marriage or life. In a word, there is something “terrifying” here indeed.

As a matter of fact, the “terrifying” image of Frost appears time and again in many of his poems. The opening part of “Mending Wall” is another typical example:

• Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
• That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
• And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
• And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
• (“Mending Wall,” ll. 1-4)

Undoubtedly this “something” refers to the fearful and formidable natural force which defies mankind’s violation of its fixed rules to such an extent that it forth-rightly overthrows the symbol of this intrusion, the wall, by “spilling” it with a gap as big as “two can pass abreast.”

A close-up look at this “something” will reveal its similarity with the Tao in ancient Chinese philosophy since both of them emphasize the indomitable power of the natural law which governs the whole universe. Han Feizi (ca. 280-233 BC) explains the Tao as “the origin and the fundamental essence of the universe” (“道者,万物之所然也,万物之所稽也.……道者,万物之所以成也”),  which is as objective as the existing “something” in Frost’s poetry. Literally speaking, the Chinese character “道 ”(Tao)reminds us first and foremost of the image of road, as defined in The lated AssociationsorShuoWen Jie Zi(《说文解字》): “Tao, the road one takes” (Su Baorong 2003, ;“道,所行道也”). One of the predominant images in Frost’s poetry is the road, and this road is as “irretrievable” and “irresistible” as the law in Taoism. In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Frost talks about the destined road we have to take even if we want to make a “death-wish” choice and to abandon the obligation of our life. Similarly, “The Road Not Taken” embodies an everlasting sigh about the “irretrievability” of the road: “I doubted if I should ever come back” (“The Road Not Taken,” l. 16).

The fearfulness of the road also lies in its namelessness, shapelessness and form-lessness, as suggested by something that “makes gaps even two can pass abreast” in “Mending Wall,” and by a more “terrifying” something that causes “even substance lapsing unsubstantial” in “West-Running Brook.” It is exactly this namelessness that many readers of Frost fail to name. Even Trilling’s thought-provoking description of Frost as “terrifying” often renders the reader hopelessly aware of the indescribable terror of his nature. Here a Taoist perspective may help shed light on the significance of this nameless road or Tao. Tao, in Lao Tzu’s words, is characterized by “shapeless shapes” and “forms without form”, and is overwhelmingly everywhere but beyond senses of smelling, seeing and touching (Lao Tzu 1997, 29; 无状之状,无物之象). In his Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu begins with the following famous lines: “The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way. The names that can be named are not unvarying names” (Lao Tzu 1997, 3;“道可道,非常道; 名可名,非常名”). In other words, the Eternal Way and the Eternal Name simply defy naming, just as Frost’s defiant brook runs west rather than east. The west-running brook carries along all the things in this universe, either sensible or insensible. So it is “time, strength, tone, light, life and love–/And even substance lapsing unsubstantial” (“The West-Running Brook,” ll. 59-60). It contains “death,” changes itself into “unresisted” nothingness, and combines not only man and woman but also mankind and nature. In short, it “flows between us, over us, and with us” (ibid.,l. 58) as an all-inclusive law which shares similarity with the Tao. As men tioned in the beginning of the present paper, the Tao is a universal, irresistible and all-inclusive law which determines the motion of all the substances in the universe, and this all-inclusiveness steeps, in its transcendental splendour, heaven and earth alike. Rather than succumbing to human efforts to categorize it into a clear shape and definite name, the Tao has an irresistable power to shape and form everything humanly imaginable, hence “terrifying” in a way. It is this “terrifying” aspect that forges a link between Taoism and the poetic philosophy of Frost. Just as Lao Tzu can only give a by-name to his Tao, so does Robert Frost find himself wrestling and grappling with a nameless west-running brook. No matter how we name Frost’s “brook” or “road” or “universal cataract of death,” they are bound to be “by-names.”

The call for eternal naming results from a yearning for transcending time and space. That is why critics like Hong Qi, as mentioned in the introductory part of the present paper, have found in Frost an escapist. It is true that the escapist vision is there. In the lines quoted above, we find Frost indicating a wish to “Get back to the beginning of beginnings” (“The West-Running Brook,” l. 48) and contemplating “The stream of everything that runs away”(ibid.,l. 52). Here is undoubtedly a longing for Chu Shi, the desire to renounce the world and to transcend mundane affairs. Another example can be found in these lines: “Some say existence like a Pirouot / and Pirouette, forever in one place, / Stands still and dances, but it runs away, / It seriously, sadly, runs away”(ibid.,ll. 50-2). As two ideal characters in French dumb show, Pirouot and Pirouette stand for the beautified fixed existence of life which defies any progress. All this is reminiscent of “Wu-wei” (无为), a key notion of Taoism, which means “non-action” or quietism, very much in line with the philosophy of Chu Shi.

2. Ru Shi: Frost as a Positive Poet

But does Chu Shi constitute the only aspect in which Robert Frost bears affinities to Taoism? In Frost’s poetic philosophy, Chu Shii soffset by Ru Shi. In other words, the poet’s desire to renounce the world is offset by his desire to accept the world.

By way of illustration, let us turn once more to “West-Running Brook.” Although “the brook runs west,” which seems to suggest a drift to nothingness (“West-Running Brook,” l. 3), there exists a counter drift toward renewal–Fredin the poem has observed “contraries” and urges his bride to “see how the brook /

In that white wave runs counter to itself”(ibid.,ll. 43-4). The poem in fact abounds with contraries and contrasts. Sadly running away as it is towards the end, the brook is at the same time going back to the beginning. There is unmistakably a “throwing backward”:

• It has this throwing backward on itself
• So that the fall of most of it is always
• Raising a little, sending up a little.
• Our life runs down in sending up the clock.
• The brook runs down in sending up our life.
• The sun runs down in sending up the brook.
• And there is something sending up the sun.

• It is backward motion toward the source,
• Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,
• The tribute of the current to the source.
• It is from this in nature we are from.
• It is most us.
• (“West-Running Brook,” ll. 66-77)

For all the “death,” “nothingness,” “void” and “emptiness” that we have discussed above, the brook carries with it a confident belief that “being downstream” is equivalent to “being upstream,” since the whole process runs in endless circles. In this sense, the west-running brook is an integral part of all those brooks flowing east. To “fall” is actually to “raise,” while to head for the west is the same as heading for the east.

All the contraries are, therefore, solved and harmonized with the west-running brook’s flowing “by contraries.” What is more, Frost regards the west-running brook’s “backward motion toward the source” as a “tribute” of the current to the source of the water, which explicitly shows his admiring attitude towards “going back,” and it cannot but remind us of Lao Tzu’s appraisal of “returning” (反). In Chapter 40 of Tao Te Ching,Lao Tzu clearly says that “[i]n Tao the only motion is returning” (Lao Tzu 1997, 87;“反者道之动”). And Tao being “Great,” as analyzed in the previous section, it “also means passing on / And passing on means going Far Away / And going far away means returning” (Lao Tzu 1997, 53;“大曰逝, 逝曰远,远曰反”).In a way, the west-running brook could be regarded as a symbol of this returning Tao, or a unifying principle, which combines all the oppositions into a unity with its endless circulation. Apparently, both the Tao and the philosophical west-running brook stem from an objective observation regarding the law of the universe. And this objectivity might lead to the “affinity”ina certain way.

As we have already observed, all the contraries in “West-Running Brook” revolve around the central image of water which has one particularly significant property, i.e., the propensity to run down. But it runs down only to send up, as indicated in the line “The brook runs down in sending up our life” (“The West-Running Brook,” l. 70). For all its perils and destructive power, which is likely to breed a desire for Chu Shi,the water in question is nonetheless a sign of restoration and resuscitation reaffirming the need for Ru Shi. A striking similarity can be found in Tao Te Ching, where water also flows down (and keeps “staying in the lowly place”) but in the meantime symbolizes “the highest good”:

• The highest good is like water
• Water benefits all things generously without striving with them.
• Staying in the lowly place that men disdain, it is close to the Tao.
• It knows to keep to the ground in choosing the dwelling.
• It knows to hide in the hidden deep in cultivating the mind.
• It knows to be gentle and kind in dealing with others.
• It knows to keep its words in speaking.
• It knows to maintain order in governing.
• It knows to be efficient in handling business.
• It knows to choose the right moment in making a move.
• Since it does not strive with others,
• It is free from blame.
• (qtd. in Zhou Yi / Liang Yihua 1993, 59-60)

Lao Tzu’s philosophy is often misunderstood as purely characterized by Chu Shi. In the quotation above, however, we can clearly see a paradoxical eagerness to act, to govern, to handle business and to achieve the highest good. That is to say, Taoism does not object to Ru Shi at all, only it prefers to “choose the right moment in making a move” and “does not strive with others.”

Similarly, Frost’s poetic philosophy is apt to be misinterpreted as having focused on an escapist vision which we have already seen emphasized by such critics as Hong Qi. It is true that Frost does indicate from time to time a wish for anding off and being far from the madding crowd, just as the wave of the west-running brook has been “standing off this jut of shore” (“The West-Running Brook,” l. 23). Even a wish for death can be spotted every now and then. The reasons are not hard to come by. Frost lived in a period which witnessed the unchecked spreading of materialism and the spiritual emptiness caused by wars. It is quite natural that such a social reality would spur him to get away from it all and to find some way to “be whole again beyond confusion” (“Directive,” l. 62). Hence his weariness of life, as indicated in the line “I am overtired / of the great harvest I myself desired” in “After Apple-Picking” (ll. 28-9); or, as confessed in “Birches,” his wish to be “a swinger of birches” again because he was “weary of consideration” and because “life is too much like a pathless wood” (ll. 43-5); or his momentary impulse to stay forever in the woods that “are lovely, dark and deep,” as strongly expressed in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (l. 10). All this, however, is counter-balanced by a strong sense of mission for one’s own world, which is equally, if not more emphatically, preval‎ent in Frost’s poems. As we have seen in “West-Running Brook,” even in the very nature of the drift to “the abyss’ void with emptiness,” there exists a counter drift toward fullness and “something sending up the sun.” Frost’s dialectical thoughts on “emptiness” ring a bell again, for we are once more reminded of Lao Tzu who has, in his Tao Te Ching, given the following remarks: “What is most full seems empty”(LaoTzu 1997, 97;“大盈若冲”).

“The counter drift” is not confined merely to “West-Running Brook,” but asserts itself repeatedly in Frost’s poetry with a diversity of forms. Barry Ahearn, in a recent article on Frost’s sonnets, has rightly pointed out that he “wants to maintain humanity ’s exceptional status” and that “Frost prefers to believe in an essential, crucial distinction between humankind and the rest of nature, a distinction he wishes to retrieve” (Ahearn 2007, 45). The wish to retrieve the distinction between humankind and the rest of nature is undoubtedly a wish toRuShi,which dovetails the above-mentioned image of “the counter drift.” Similar instances abound. In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” for instance, the poet finally refuses the call of the “lovely” woods, and is determined to accomplish his journey, although it means “miles” of arduous journey (ll. 15-6). He has “promises to keep,” (l. 14) and those promises have nothing to do withChuShi,and have everything to do with Ru Shi. In “The Road Not Taken,” the poet eventually comes to terms with the fate coming from his previous choice of “the one less traveled by”althoughhe knows that “that has made all the difference” (ll. 15-6). And in “Birches,” Frost makes it clear that his wish to be away from the “earth” will last only “awhile,” and then he would like to “come back to it” again since “Earth’s the right place for love: / I don’t know where it’s likely to go better”(ll.49-54). He even indicates a fear that fate might misunderstand him:

• May no fate willfully misunderstand me
• And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
• Not to return…
• (“Birches,” ll. 51-3)

So the poet here does want to return, i.e., to Ru Shi in Taoist terms. It would be wrong then to look upon Frost merely as an escapist. “Birches” is one of the poems which most vividly and adequately display the philosophical attitude of Frost towards reality, and that attitude is most aptly embedded in the image of “a swinger of birches”:

• I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree–
• And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
• Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
• But dipped its top and set me down again.
• That would be good both going and coming back.
• One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
• (“Birches,” ll. 55-60)

For all his fantasy about “climbing” toward heaven, toward Chu Shi in a sense, the poet never fails to see the restricted ability of the birch tree which, having struck roots deeply in the earth, will eventually send him down to the earth again. Ru Shi, or accepting the world, is therefore Frost’s ultimate choice or, in his own opinion, “man’s sacred duty.”  In the swinging of birches, we can see a curve or rather two curves similar to the waves in “West-Running Brook”: a drift and a counter drift.

It should be further pointed out that the image of water, with its drift and counter drift, is like a pervading thread running through the whole career of Robert Frost. It appears in his earliest poems and in his last one. In “The Pasture,” which is among the first three poems he published, water pops up in the form of a “spring”: “I am going out to clean the pasture spring” (l. 1). Then the water runs down through Frost’s poetry just like the “confident” west-running brook, and finally shows up in his last poem “Directive,” which contains another philosophical statement: “Here are your waters and watering place, / Drink and be whole again beyond confusion” (ll. 61-2). The act of “drinking” symbolically implies the attitude of acceptance. With the publication of “Directive,” the west-running brook of Frost’s poetic career seems to have completed a full cycle and to have definitely flown into a place of acceptance rather than a place of refusal. His sincere acceptance of reality is fully consistent with the Taoist philosophy of Ru Shi, which means, in Chuang Tzu’s words, to “bear the doomed fate with equanimity” (“安之若命”)and to “be content with what you have” (“安时处顺”). Just as the Taoist “water”(thehighest good) always presupposes “having tranquility in the hustle and bustle” (“结庐在人境,而无车马喧”), so is Frost’s west-running brook eternally returning to its origin.

3. Conclusion

Thanks to the west-running brook, we have come to see a closer link between the poetic philosophy of Frost and ancient Chinese philosophy. A cross-reading of Frost and Taoist works confirm‎s Radcliffe Squires’s view that “West-Running Brook” is “the summit of Frost’s poetry”(Squires1963, 104). A summit it is, for

it contributes to bridging the gap between the philosophical thoughts of the East and the West. Although they are remote from each other in time and space, the poetic philosophy of Frost and Taoism bear striking affinities that call for a meticulous comparative study.

Reading Frost in Taoist perspective, as shown by our analysis above, is conducive to exploring the undercurrents of and counter drifts in his poetry, which will lead to an understanding of Frost not as a mere escapist, nor as a merely “terrifying” poet, but as a sage with more balanced philosophical attitudes toward life. True, the poetic lines of Frost often betray an impulse to renounce the world, but it is always offset by a willingness to accept and even embrace the world. The west-running brook may head for Chu Shi, but it will eventually end up in Ru Shi.

Works Cited

Ahearn, Barry (2007). “Frost’s Sonnets, In and Out of Bounds.” Viorca Patea and Paul Scott Derrick, eds.Modernism Revisited: Transgressing Boundaries and Strategies of Renewal in American Poetry.Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 35-52.

Cheng Aimin (1996). “The Consanguineous Cultivation of a Fictitious Land of Peace: A Comparative Study of Tao Yuanming’s and Frost’s Poems on Nature.”Journalof PLA University of Foreign Language2,75-81.

Chang Yaoxin (2002).ASurvey of American Literature.Tianjin: Nankai University Press.

Cox, Hyde, and Edward C. Lathem (1968). “Introduction.” Hyde Cox and Edward C. Lathem, eds.SelectedProse of Robert Frost.New York: Macmillan, 3-50.

Frost, Robert (1995).TheCollected Poems, Prose and Plays.Eds. Richard Poirier and Mark Richards. New York: Library of America.

Hong Qi (2004). “An Extrication Transcending Time and Space: The Theme of Frost in Chuang Tzu’s Perspective.”TheoryHorizon4,164-6.

Huang Zongying (2000).ARoad Less Traveled By: On the Deceptive Simplicity in the Poetry of Robert Frost.Beijing:Peking University Press. 

Lao Tzu (1997).TaoTe Ching.Trans. Arthur Waley. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Reserach Press & Cumberland House.

Parini, Jay, and Brett C. Miller (2005).TheColumbia History of American Poetry. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press & Columbia University Press.

Su Baorong (2003).ShuoWen Jie Zi.Xian: People’s Publishing House of Shanxi.

Squires, Radcliffe (1963).TheMajor Themes of Robert Frost.Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Trilling, Lionel (1959). “A Speech on Robert Frost: A Cultural Episode.”Partisan Review26,445-52.

Toming, Liu (2002).AHistory of American Literature.Nanjing: Yilin Press.

Zhou Yi, and Liang Yihua (1993).ChineseCulture.Nanning: Guangxi Education Press.

Zhao Yiheng (2003).TheGoddess of Poetry Traveling Faraway: How the Modern American Poetry Has Undergone a Metamorphosis in China.Shanghai:Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

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The escape to Franconia afforded so much relief, Frost soon found himself in the mood for writing new poems and revising old ones. The longest of his unfinished poems, started in the spring of 1920, had been inspired in part by Edward Ames Richards, the Amherst student who had subsequently gone partway with the Frosts on the Long Trail hike in 1922. Richards had published in The Amherst Monthly for March 1920 a meditative lyric in which two lovers talked briefly about a brook's name. In discussing the poem with Richards, at the time of its publication, Frost had said that if he were to build either a lyric or a dramatic dialogue around the name of a brook, he would make something quite different.

 The only help needed or gained from Richards was a particular memory-jog. Back in his Derry days Frost had often admired a stream that flowed westward, as though it were deliberately ignoring its eventual destination to the east, the Atlantic Ocean. On all the Derry maps, old and new, that stream was officially designated West-Running Brook. Never before had Frost considered building metaphors around the contrary direction of that stream, but Richards had shown him possibilities, and a good start had been made.

 Returning now to this unfinished poem, he brought to it a new stimulus afforded by the scientists with whom he had quarreled at the University of Michigan. He had boasted of his own Socratic contrariety in

merely asking those men questions about the Darwinian theory, but he had confided to Untermeyer something else concerning his artistic pleasure in reacting against more than evolutionary formulas:

 ". . . [I am very] fond of seeing our theories knocked into cocked hats. What I like about [Henri] Bergson and [J. Henri] Fabre is that they have bothered our evolutionism so much with the cases of instinct they have brought up. You get more credit for thinking if you restate formulae or cite cases that fall in easily under formulae, but all the fun is outside[:] saying things that suggest formulae that won't formulate—that almost but don't quite formulate. I should like to be so subtle at this game as to seem to the casual person altogether obvious. The casual person would assume that I meant nothing or else I came near enough meaning something he was familiar with to mean it for all practical purposes. Well well well."

 What Frost liked, in addition, about Bergson and Fabre was that each had acquainted himself with the results of modern science and, then, found his own ways to attack some of the most cherished scientific hypotheses.

 One image in Frost's gradually developing poem, "West-Running Brook," owed far more to Bergson than to Richards. In Creative Evolution, Bergson had extended the Lucretian view of life as a river: the stream of everything that runs away to spend itself in death and nothingness, except as it is resisted by the spirit of human beings. Bergson had added another analogy, built around a wave-image: "Life as a whole, from the initial impulsion that thrust it into the world, will appear as a wave which rises, and which is opposed by the descending movement of matter." And he had written: "Our own consciousness is . . . continually drawn the opposite way, obliged, though it goes forward, to look behind. This retrospective vision . . . must detach itself from the already-made and attach itself to the being-made . . . , turning back on itself and twisting on itself. ..."

 To Frost, one of the most important elements in Bergson's highly poetic philosophy was the denial of essentially deterministic elements in the Darwinian theories. In his gently contrary manner, Bergson insisted that the human spirit has the freely willed power to resist materialism through creative acts that pay tribute to God. Frost, in bringing his poem to completion, made it a study in Bergsonian contraries.

 "West-Running Brook" begins as a dramatic narrative in which a New England farmer and his wife notice similarities between themselves and the brook:

" Tt must be the brook / Can trust itself to go by contraries / The way I can with you—and you with me. . .  Then, they notice another contrariety: "The black stream, catching on a sunken rock, / Flung backward on itself in one white wave, / And the white water rode the black forever. ..."

 Immediately, the man and wife express pleasantly contrary views concerning whether the wave should be endowed with masculine or feminine symbolism; but the wife encourages the husband to say how he interprets it, and he does. Although, as he goes on, the husband seems to be expressing a purely materialistic view of biological devolution and of eventual annihilation, the continuing motion of the poem is contrary to such a view.

 Within this Bergsonian poem the act of resistance is primarily motivated by sorrow or remorse over that which is happening, as all substance seems to be lapsing unsubstantial in the universal cataract of death. At the same time, the act of resistance is represented as being sacred, in the sense that it is an assertion of belonging and dedication and consecration to the Source of the elan vital. The husband seems to be manipulating, metaphorically, such Heraclitean-Lucretian-Pauline contraries as that the death of the earth gives life to fire, the death of fire gives life to air, the death of air gives life to water, and the death of water gives life to earth—thus, figuratively suggesting the endless cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and continuity, in nature and in human nature.

 The motion of the metaphors is one of circling back to the beginning of beginnings, in the cautiously ambiguous statement, " 'And there is something sending up the sun.' " Such a statement might or might not be made to fit the Darwinian formula of evolution, but the husband's concluding lines endow the statement (and the entire poem) with religious overtones that are contrary to a purely scientific interpretation of evolutionary theories: " 'It is this backward motion toward the source, / Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in, / The tribute of the current to the source. / It is from this in nature we are from. / It is most us.'"

 Robert Frost knew that in "West-Running Brook" the metaphors he had borrowed and adapted to his own uses had provided him with the most incisive and expansive poetic expression‎ he had yet given his deepest religious belief concerning death and the possibilities of eternal salvation after death. Nevertheless, he knew he had conveyed these beliefs with enough artistic indirection to let him escape any self-conscious embarrassment.

From "Robert Frost : A Biography, A One Volume Edition of the Authorised Biography - Thompson Lawrance Roger, Winnick R. H., pp. 309~11"

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