Robert Frost

The Exposed Nest

YOU were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But ’twas no make-believe with you to-day,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.
’Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground

The mower's near-miss

The cutter-bar passed over the nest without killing the birds—but this 'miracle' is actually the problem. The nest is now exposed and vulnerable because of the machinery.

The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasting flesh)

The mower's near-miss

The cutter-bar passed over the nest without killing the birds—but this 'miracle' is actually the problem. The nest is now exposed and vulnerable because of the machinery.

And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right

What the birds actually need

The speaker identifies the real issue: the birds need 'something interposed between their sight / And too much world at once.' Not food or warmth, but shelter from overwhelming exposure.

Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once—could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.

The mother-bird problem

The speaker recognizes a genuine dilemma: helping the nest might make the mother-bird afraid to return. This is not sentimental—it's a real ecological risk they acknowledge but ignore.

That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could

Good intentions, unclear outcome

The phrase 'Though harm should come of it' admits they're proceeding despite uncertainty. They choose action over caution, but Frost leaves the actual result unknown.

Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven’t any memory—have you?—
Of ever coming to the place again

The confession of forgetting

The speaker admits they never returned to check. The poem's final revelation isn't about the birds—it's that human good intentions often end in indifference, not triumph.

To see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The structure of delayed recognition

Frost spends the first 13 lines misdirecting us. The speaker narrates what they *think* is happening—a child playing with hay—before revealing what's actually happening: a child discovering an exposed nest. This delay forces us to experience the speaker's own misunderstanding, making the poem about perspective and assumption.

Notice the speaker's confidence in the opening: 'I went to show you how to make it stay.' The speaker positions themselves as the teacher, the one with knowledge. But the child has already seen what matters. By the time we reach 'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground,' the power dynamic has reversed—the child's discovery becomes the real knowledge.

This structure teaches something about Frost's method: he often uses narrative misdirection not for surprise's sake, but to make us complicit in misreading. We learn alongside the speaker, which makes the poem's final admission—that they never returned—feel like our own failure too.

The problem with good intentions

The poem's central tension isn't whether the birds survive—it's whether intervention helps or harms. The speaker explicitly recognizes this: 'might our meddling make her more afraid.' They see the risk clearly, yet proceed anyway. This isn't portrayed as noble sacrifice; it's portrayed as a choice made despite genuine uncertainty.

The phrase 'All this to prove we cared' is crucial. The nest-building becomes less about saving the birds and more about performing care—about creating evidence that they tried. Once that performance is complete ('We turned to other things'), the actual stakes disappear. The speaker never checks whether the birds survived, never learns if the screen helped or hurt. [BIOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT: Frost was writing during the early 1900s when rural life was rapidly changing; the mower represents mechanized agriculture destroying traditional habitats.]

The final lines—'I haven't any memory—have you?— / Of ever coming to the place again'—are the poem's real subject. Not the nest, but human forgetfulness. We act with conviction, then move on. We never learn the consequences of our intervention, so we never have to revise our sense of ourselves as good people.