"I always entertain great hopes"
About this Quote
A deceptively sunny line from a poet who made a career out of weathering hard country truths. “I always entertain great hopes” isn’t the beaming optimism it first pretends to be; it’s Frost choosing a verb that carries a whole second life. To “entertain” hope is not to possess it like faith or certainty. It’s to host it - invite it in, keep it company, maybe offer it a drink - while knowing it could leave at any moment. Hope, in Frost’s hands, becomes a guest: welcome, useful, not entirely reliable.
That’s classic Frostian restraint. He doesn’t declare himself hopeful; he frames hope as something he manages. The adverb “always” adds a quiet stubbornness, less cheerleader than habit-forming discipline. This is the posture of someone who has learned that despair is loud and dramatic, while endurance is often procedural: show up, keep the lights on, make room for the possibility of better.
Context matters here because Frost’s public image - the grandfatherly New England sage - often masks the sharper undercurrents in his work and life: grief, isolation, the thin ice of rural stability. When he offers “great hopes,” the adjective flirts with grandeur, but the sentence itself is plainspoken, almost conversational. That tension is the point. Frost is smuggling a survival strategy into a modest phrase: you don’t have to believe the world will improve; you just have to keep a seat open for the chance that it might.
That’s classic Frostian restraint. He doesn’t declare himself hopeful; he frames hope as something he manages. The adverb “always” adds a quiet stubbornness, less cheerleader than habit-forming discipline. This is the posture of someone who has learned that despair is loud and dramatic, while endurance is often procedural: show up, keep the lights on, make room for the possibility of better.
Context matters here because Frost’s public image - the grandfatherly New England sage - often masks the sharper undercurrents in his work and life: grief, isolation, the thin ice of rural stability. When he offers “great hopes,” the adjective flirts with grandeur, but the sentence itself is plainspoken, almost conversational. That tension is the point. Frost is smuggling a survival strategy into a modest phrase: you don’t have to believe the world will improve; you just have to keep a seat open for the chance that it might.
Quote Details
| Topic | Hope |
|---|
More Quotes by Robert
Add to List
