Desert Places

Desert Places by Robert Frost
I decided to go back to this one because I loved this one and meant to do a blog on it earlier.

"Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last."

I interpreted this section as the speaker feels lonely (I saw more of this later too) and felt as though it came on fast. I saw "night falling fast" as the darkness that the speaker feels in his life. I also interpreted the las two lines in this section as meaning that everyone, despite how strong their exterior or front is, has issues that they deal with.

"The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares."

This section I felt as though the speaker was saying that he felt like he didn't have his own space or his own home. The loneliness spoken about above also became more obvious to me in this stanza.

"And lonely as it is, that loneliness
will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With not expression, nothing to express."

I felt as though Frost was trying to say that a blanket of snow is 'expressionless' (if you will). A smooth, white, pristine blanket of snow is like a person's 'poker face'. You cannot necessarily know when something is wrong with them. This, to me, related back to the last two lines in the first stanza.

"They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places."

This section was hard for me to interpret. I took it as, the speaker was so fearful of his own loneliness and issues that he couldn't be scared by the issues of others.