The most of it

He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush—and that was all.

Robert Frost (1874 -1963)

This is a twenty iambic line poem with rhyming scheme ‘ab ab’
talus – sloping fragments of rock

Lines 1-8 … wanting more from the universe
Having the universe to himself was not enough. He wanted more and what he wanted was the universe to talk back and not give the echo copy of his own words. He wanted more than what the universe could offer. He was obviously lonely and needed human companionship. He wanted something personal to counter his love for the universe and asks for an original response.

Lines 9 – 20 … the universe gives a response
This is all that nature could offer and this was not enough but it is an original response. A very poetic statement that man cannot live alone. Making the most of it is insufficient without human company.

More WordPress commentary on this poem … https://socialecologies.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/robert-frost-the-most-of-it/

Robert Frost on Wikipedia … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost