"Dream Pang" by Robert Frost

I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
‘I dare not—too far in his footsteps stray—
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.’

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But ’tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.

In my own words, I would say: I had a dream that I ran away to my forest, where my true feelings were disguised by rustling leaves. You came to the edge of the forest and stood there a long time, wondering. But you didn’t enter. Instead, you shook your head and said, “He needs to come find me and apologize first.” Hidden nearby, I saw you. And I felt a sweet pain when I didn’t let myself call out after you. I still feel that pain. But it’s not true that I was hiding from you because I don’t care. The fact that you were even able to find my forest is proof that I wanted you nearby.

Dream Pang is a beautiful expression of a uniquely frustrating, heartbreaking phenomenon: hiding from someone you love, and who loves you, because pride prevents you from making the first step toward reconciliation.

Robert Frost’s speaker is shy about speaking first, and the person outside the forest (I imagine a woman) feels too much wronged to take the first steps toward peace. What results is a lonely impasse, where neither party feels loved or understood. The lines that I find most painful are, “And the sweet pang it cost me not to call And tell you that I saw does still abide.” Not only is “sweet pang” the exact way to describe the feeling this poem evokes in my soul, it is also indicative of the very love that exists between the speaker and the woman beyond the forest’s edge—one that is so great as to get in its own way. The sweetness of his love makes it painful not to call out to her, and yet, if it were not for that love, he might be much more willing to call out.

Recently, I have been obsessed with this variety of conflict. Over the summer I led a book group in a reading of Gone With the Wind, and if you have ever read about Rhett and Scarlett, you know exactly why I am tearing up now in mere recollection of their love. I am also reading The Scarlet Pimpernel with my 6th grade students now, and we read this poem together today in connection with the conflict Marguerite and Percy Blakeney face. The idea that one’s ideal can be embodied by the person who has been by your side all along is so romantic, and the thought of discovering that only at the moment when the possibility of happiness disappears forever is absolutely tragic.

The sweet pangs of these conflicts between loving souls fill me with sighs and ardor, and Robert Frost gives expression to that reaction in his gorgeous sonnet.