A Servant to Servants
I didn't make you know how glad I was
To have you come and camp here on our land.
I promised myself to get down some day
And see the way you lived, but I don't know!
With a houseful of hungry men to feed
I guess you'd find.... It seems to me
I can't express my feelings any more
Than I can raise my voice or want to lift
My hand (oh, I can lift it when I have to).
Did ever you feel so? I hope you never.
It's got so I don't even know for sure
Whether I am glad, sorry, or anything.
There's nothing but a voice-like left inside
That seems to tell me how I ought to feel,
And would feel if I wasn't all gone wrong.
You take the lake. I look and look at it.
I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water.
I stand and make myself repeat out loud
The advantages it has, so long and narrow,
Like a deep piece of some old running river
Cut short off at both ends. It lies five miles
Straight away through the mountain notch
From the sink window where I wash the plates,
And all our storms come up toward the house,
Drawing the slow waves whiter and whiter and whiter.
It took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuit
To step outdoors and take the water dazzle
A sunny morning, or take the rising wind
About my face and body and through my wrapper,
When a storm threatened from the Dragon's Den,
And a cold chill shivered across the lake.
I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water,
Our Willoughby! How did you hear of it?
I expect, though, everyone's heard of it.
In a book about ferns? Listen to that!
You let things more like feathers regulate
Your going and coming. And you like it here?
I can see how you might. But I don't know!
It would be different if more people came,
For then there would be business. As it is,
The cottages Len built, sometimes we rent them,
Sometimes we don't. We've a good piece of shore
That ought to be worth something, and may yet.
But I don't count on it as much as Len.
He looks on the bright side of everything,
Including me. He thinks I'll be all right
With doctoring. But it's not medicine--
Lowe is the only doctor's dared to say so--
It's rest I want--there, I have said it out--
From cooking meals for hungry hired men
And washing dishes after them--from doing
Things over and over that just won't stay done.
By good rights I ought not to have so much
Put on me, but there seems no other way.
Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.
He says the best way out is always through.
And I agree to that, or in so far
As that I can see no way out but through--
Leastways for me--and then they'll be convinced.
It's not that Len don't want the best for me.
It was his plan our moving over in
Beside the lake from where that day I showed you
We used to live--ten miles from anywhere.
We didn't change without some sacrifice,
But Len went at it to make up the loss.
His work's a man's, of course, from sun to sun,
But he works when he works as hard as I do--
Though there's small profit in comparisons.
(Women and men will make them all the same.)
But work ain't all. Len undertakes too much.
He's into everything in town. This year
It's highways, and he's got too many men
Around him to look after that make waste.
They take advantage of him shamefully,
And proud, too, of themselves for doing so.
We have four here to board, great good-for-nothings,
Sprawling about the kitchen with their talk
While I fry their bacon. Much they care!
No more put out in what they do or say
Than if I wasn't in the room at all.
Coming and going all the time, they are:
I don't learn what their names are, let alone
Their characters, or whether they are safe
To have inside the house with doors unlocked.
I'm not afraid of them, though, if they're not
Afraid of me. There's two can play at that.
I have my fancies: it runs in the family.
My father's brother wasn't right. They kept him
Locked up for years back there at the old farm.
I've been away once--yes, I've been away.
The State Asylum. I was prejudiced;
I wouldn't have sent anyone of mine there;
You know the old idea--the only asylum
Was the poorhouse, and those who could afford,
Rather than send their folks to such a place,
Kept them at home; and it does seem more human.
But it's not so: the place is the asylum.
There they have every means proper to do with,
And you aren't darkening other people's lives--
Worse than no good to them, and they no good
To you in your condition; you can't know
Affection or the want of it in that state.
I've heard too much of the old-fashioned way.
My father's brother, he went mad quite young.
Some thought he had been bitten by a dog,
Because his violence took on the form
Of carrying his pillow in his teeth;
But it's more likely he was crossed in love,
Or so the story goes. It was some girl.
Anyway all he talked about was love.
They soon saw he would do someone a mischief
If he wa'n't kept strict watch of, and it ended
In father's building him a sort of cage,
Or room within a room, of hickory poles,
Like stanchions in the barn, from floor to ceiling,--
A narrow passage all the way around.
Anything they put in for furniture
He'd tear to pieces, even a bed to lie on.
So they made the place comfortable with straw,
Like a beast's stall, to ease their consciences.
Of course they had to feed him without dishes.
They tried to keep him clothed, but he paraded
With his clothes on his arm--all of his clothes.
Cruel--it sounds. I 'spose they did the best
They knew. And just when he was at the height,
Father and mother married, and mother came,
A bride, to help take care of such a creature,
And accommodate her young life to his.
That was what marrying father meant to her.
She had to lie and hear love things made dreadful
By his shouts in the night. He'd shout and shout
Until the strength was shouted out of him,
And his voice died down slowly from exhaustion.
He'd pull his bars apart like bow and bow-string,
And let them go and make them twang until
His hands had worn them smooth as any ox-bow.
And then he'd crow as if he thought that child's play--
The only fun he had. I've heard them say, though,
They found a way to put a stop to it.
He was before my time--I never saw him;
But the pen stayed exactly as it was
There in the upper chamber in the ell,
A sort of catch-all full of attic clutter.
I often think of the smooth hickory bars.
It got so I would say--you know, half fooling--
"It's time I took my turn upstairs in jail"--
Just as you will till it becomes a habit.
No wonder I was glad to get away.
Mind you, I waited till Len said the word.
I didn't want the blame if things went wrong.
I was glad though, no end, when we moved out,
And I looked to be happy, and I was,
As I said, for a while--but I don't know!
Somehow the change wore out like a prescription.
And there's more to it than just window-views
And living by a lake. I'm past such help--
Unless Len took the notion, which he won't,
And I won't ask him--it's not sure enough.
I 'spose I've got to go the road I'm going:
Other folks have to, and why shouldn't I?
I almost think if I could do like you,
Drop everything and live out on the ground--
But it might be, come night, I shouldn't like it,
Or a long rain. I should soon get enough,
And be glad of a good roof overhead.
I've lain awake thinking of you, I'll warrant,
More than you have yourself, some of these nights.
The wonder was the tents weren't snatched away
From over you as you lay in your beds.
I haven't courage for a risk like that.
Bless you, of course, you're keeping me from work,
But the thing of it is, I need to be kept.
There's work enough to do--there's always that;
But behind's behind. The worst that you can do
Is set me back a little more behind.
I sha'n't catch up in this world, anyway.
I'd rather you'd not go unless you must.
Literary Analysis
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Summary
Robert Frost places the reader inside an uneasy conversation in which a woman, speaking with exhausting honesty, tries to explain how a life of labor, isolation, and inherited instability has narrowed her inner world. She begins by addressing a visitor who has camped on the family land, then moves outward from polite remarks about the lake and the property into a much more troubling confession about fatigue, resentment, and the sense that her emotions no longer belong fully to her. What seems at first like a rural exchange gradually becomes a portrait of a mind and body under strain, trapped between duty to others and the desire for rest.
The poem progresses by association rather than argument: the lake leads to talk of the land, the land to the men who work and board there, the household to family history, and family history to the fear that something in the woman herself is becoming unmanageable. That movement gives the poem its force. Her account of the imprisoned uncle, the pressure of domestic work, and her husband's practical optimism all feed into the central tension between endurance and collapse. She knows the language of perseverance, but she also recognizes how fragile that language is when a person is overburdened. The closing refusal of the visitor's departure, simple on the surface, leaves behind the deeper implication that she is frightened of being left alone with herself, with work, and with the long labor of survival.
Theme
- Emotional exhaustion - The woman's repeated inability to feel clearly suggests a life worn down by constant effort, until even basic emotions seem inaccessible.
- Domestic labor as burden - Cooking, washing, feeding hired men, and keeping the household going are presented not as ordinary chores but as an endless cycle that drains identity and rest.
- Isolation - Although the setting is open and scenic, the woman remains socially and emotionally cut off, surrounded by people but deeply alone.
- Inherited instability - The story of the uncle and the family's history of confinement hint that mental distress is not only personal but also tied to lineage and memory.
- Duty versus self-preservation - She feels bound to keep going, yet the poem keeps exposing the cost of that obedience to work, family, and marriage.
- Surface calm versus inner turmoil - The lake, the property, and the polite conversation all look settled, but underneath them is a mind close to breaking point.
- Marriage and unequal strain - Her husband's good intentions do not erase the imbalance in their lives, especially when his optimism cannot relieve her actual condition.
Literary Devices
- Dramatic monologue - The poem unfolds through one woman's extended speech, letting her reveal character, history, and distress indirectly and powerfully.
- Blank verse - Frost's unrhymed iambic pentameter gives the conversation a natural, speech-like rhythm while still holding it in tight poetic control.
- Repetition - Repeated phrases and circling thoughts mirror the speaker's mental exhaustion and her difficulty in moving toward resolution.
- Symbolic landscape - The lake and surrounding property are more than scenery; they reflect the speaker's attempt to find stability, distance, or relief.
- Colloquial diction - The plain, conversational language makes the distress feel immediate and credible, grounding the poem in ordinary speech.
- Metaphor - The speaker's sense of being "all gone wrong" and the image of work that never stays done capture psychological and physical depletion.
- Character revelation through anecdote - The story of the uncle in confinement deepens the speaker's fear of her own mind without requiring direct explanation.
- Irony - Statements about practical wisdom and endurance often carry a painful edge, because the advice that should help her only emphasizes how trapped she feels.
Symbolism
- The lake - The lake suggests beauty, distance, and the possibility of rest, but it also remains something the speaker can only look at, not truly inhabit as peace.
- The house - The home stands for domestic responsibility and confinement, a place that should shelter her but instead keeps demanding more of her.
- The uncle's cage - The improvised prison symbolizes the fear of madness, as well as the family's harsh attempts to contain what they do not understand.
- Wash dishes and cooking - These recurring actions represent repetitive labor that drains the speaker and leaves no lasting sense of completion.
- The tents and camp - The visitor's temporary shelter contrasts with the speaker's permanent burden and suggests a freedom she both envies and distrusts.
- Behind's behind - The idea of falling behind becomes a symbol of a life in which work, debt, and obligation can never quite be caught up with.
Tone
Frost's tone is restrained, observant, and unsentimental, allowing the woman's speech to carry its own pressure without overt commentary. Beneath the calm surface lies a mood of fatigue, claustrophobia, and uneasy confession. The reader feels the slow accumulation of strain: a household that never stops demanding, a mind trying to stay orderly, and a landscape that offers little relief from inward distress.
Historical Context
Robert Frost often wrote in traditional forms while focusing on rural New England life, but his poems frequently complicate that familiar setting by exposing loneliness, labor, and psychological pressure beneath the appearance of simplicity. A Servant to Servants belongs to that broader modern treatment of rural existence: the farm is not idealized as pure independence, but shown as a place shaped by work, economic strain, and emotional isolation.
The poem also reflects an early twentieth-century literary interest in interior speech and fractured consciousness. Rather than offering a tidy moral or pastoral celebration, it lets a troubled voice reveal how domestic roles, family history, and mental distress can become entangled. Its blank verse and conversational idiom keep it rooted in older poetic traditions even as its psychological realism feels distinctly modern.