Can someone please help me analyze this poem? What is he talking about? I understand that he is hiding from something, but that's about all. Can anyone help me?

Thanks!

I think he is reflecting back on how our perceptions/reactions change as we go through life.
When we are young we are afraid of what(or who) might be behind a closed door, but as we get older we invite the unknown into our presence.
A question to ask about this poem is this. Is the poem about opportunities one has throughout his/her life?

for me i was given an assignment in Ap 11 english to choose a poem and analyze it. I went to all these websites and i have seen so many different analyzations. Its of Death, love , reincarnation, relationships, oppurtunity, and u know what? Basically i got nothing from the two billion analyzations i read. Then, someone told me something that made me decide somethign for myself. They said that when they were in college the professor always graded on correctness of an anzlyzation on a poem. But can anyone really actually know exactly what the poet meant? No. Nobody was the poet. And i doubt any analyzation was the best friend of Robert Frost, and that Frost told him/her everything he wrote about/for/etc. So, in the end, it comes back to just what u urself get from the poem, out of the poem. What it means to YOU. How u connect it to your life, or just principles, or ideas in general. Maybie to something you can relate to yourself. The point of this poem, i believe, or what i get out of it, is death. he says he is altering in age. He doesn't answer the door. He prays to the door. He goes outisde the window sill, then comes back in and finally lets what was knocking in. He let his "cage" go. I believe that means he finally faced death. face to face. But like i said, this may not be so to you. Its what you yourslef get out of the poem, and its what u can connect and relate to that helps you best analyze a poem.

It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.

I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.

But the knock came again
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.

Back over the sill
I bade a “Come in”
To whoever the knock
At the door may have been.

So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.


Hey, Robbie, shouldn't that be 'whomever' instead of 'whoever'?

Sounds like it could be a response to De La Mare's mysterious verse as well.


The Listeners

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
-- Walter De La Mare

i am doing an essay/presentation on the literal/figurative meaning, and 3 important literary elements (with examples) of 'THE LOCKLESS DOOR'. all i've been able to figure out is that some symbols include the door, the lock, the window, and the cage, and that this might be about death. i need help please!

Soccer, if Frost is personifying death, and I don't necessarily agree with that interpretation, then one of the key elements you should consider is "personification".

Other key elements to consider would be the setting, the mood, the tone of the speaker. And other areas to consider might be the literal and interpretive meanings of the piece. Go to Bob's Byway and look up these words: "personification", "connotation", "setting", and "mood".


[www.poeticbyway.com]


Les

It's not commonly known, but Bobby was a secret homosexual. In the Lockless Door poem, he considers coming 'out of the closet' and letting his preferences be known to the world.

Notice the references to walking (light in the loafers) on tip toe and blowing the, ahem, light ( a candle, no doubt). He raises both hands in surrender to his baser urges, and opens wide to accept what is offered. He finally empties his 'cage', and alters his behavior with the coming of age.

All the hidden meanings will be immediately understood once the reader, uh, comes to grip with these facts.

What is the theme of this poem????

It's probably about opportunity.

Les

But he heard whomever knock twice.

And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.

Compare this with Holman Hunt's painting "the Light of the World" There is no lock to the outside of the door to allow Christ to enter, the door can only be open from the inside. [www.victorianweb.org]

Do Frost and Hunt have the same or opposite images of the door?

And opportunity never knocks twice - right!

Ok, we know that RLF enjoyed saying one thing and meaning another. So, it won't be a real door, room, cage or lock he is talking about. And, he always took great glee in having various innuendoes available in his poems, happy that readers could make more than one interpretation. So, it is safe to say that whatever interpretation Michelle would care to argue cannot be proven wrong. We may allow ourselves to conjecture at will.

Self escape, isolation, maturity have all been suggested for the theme of this one, with much to support such interpretations.


It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.

(What is the door with no lock? Life itself?)

I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.

(He prays to the door - is the visitor God?)

But the knock came again
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.

(So God doesn't answer, but knocks again.)

Back over the sill
I bade a “Come in”
To whoever the knock
At the door may have been.

(Once outside his previous abode, he invites the visitor inside.)

So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.

(Therefore, he left his cage - birdlike - hiding in the world instead of the cage, and grew old there instead of in the cage.)

Many think such poems as The Road Not Taken, Acquainted With The Night, and Stopping By Woods are all 'poems about poetry'. This one could be as well. He decides to leave his 'cage' of contemplation and introspection, maturing in the literary world as a poet of renown.