Robert Frost

Locked Out

When we locked up the house at night,

locked / cut off

The speaker uses two verbs for the same action—locking and cutting. The repetition emphasizes deliberate separation, not accidental exclusion. This sets up the poem's central anxiety: protective measures that might actually harm what they're meant to protect.

We always locked the flowers outside
And cut them off from the window light.

locked / cut off

The speaker uses two verbs for the same action—locking and cutting. The repetition emphasizes deliberate separation, not accidental exclusion. This sets up the poem's central anxiety: protective measures that might actually harm what they're meant to protect.

The time I dreamed the door was tried
And brushed with buttons upon sleeves,

thieves / nobody molested

The speaker's fear (thieves) doesn't match reality (nothing stolen). The exclamation mark signals surprise or even disappointment. Frost is exploring how our anxieties often exceed actual danger—we lock up the flowers to protect them from a threat that never materializes.

The flowers were out there with the thieves.
Yet nobody molested them!

thieves / nobody molested

The speaker's fear (thieves) doesn't match reality (nothing stolen). The exclamation mark signals surprise or even disappointment. Frost is exploring how our anxieties often exceed actual danger—we lock up the flowers to protect them from a threat that never materializes.

one nasturtium / bitten stem

The specific flower name and damage detail shift the poem from abstract worry to concrete evidence. But notice: the damage is minor (bitten, not stolen) and the speaker immediately takes responsibility, undercutting the theft narrative entirely.

We did find one nasturtium
Upon the steps with bitten stem.

one nasturtium / bitten stem

The specific flower name and damage detail shift the poem from abstract worry to concrete evidence. But notice: the damage is minor (bitten, not stolen) and the speaker immediately takes responsibility, undercutting the theft narrative entirely.

I always thought / I played with

The speaker moves from uncertain ('may have been') to habitual certainty ('always thought'). This reveals how we construct narratives to explain small mysteries—the speaker invents a plausible explanation (childhood play) rather than accept ambiguity about what damaged the flower.

I may have been to blame for that:
I always thought it must have been

I always thought / I played with

The speaker moves from uncertain ('may have been') to habitual certainty ('always thought'). This reveals how we construct narratives to explain small mysteries—the speaker invents a plausible explanation (childhood play) rather than accept ambiguity about what damaged the flower.

I always thought / I played with

The speaker moves from uncertain ('may have been') to habitual certainty ('always thought'). This reveals how we construct narratives to explain small mysteries—the speaker invents a plausible explanation (childhood play) rather than accept ambiguity about what damaged the flower.

Some flower I played with as I sat
At dusk to watch the moon down early.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Anxiety vs. Reality: The Logic of Locking

Frost builds the poem on a fundamental mismatch: the speaker's household locks flowers outside at night as protection, but the feared harm (theft) never occurs. The dream of someone trying the door ('the door was tried / And brushed with buttons upon sleeves') triggers the anxiety, yet when morning comes, the only casualty is one nasturtium with a bitten stem—likely caused by the speaker's own childhood play, not thieves.

The poem works as a study in how we justify protective measures based on imagined threats. The locking and cutting off of flowers from window light seems excessive once we realize nothing dangerous actually happens. Frost doesn't mock this caution—he simply observes how ordinary anxiety operates. We construct narratives (thieves, danger) to explain minor incidents (a flower with a bitten stem) because the alternative—admitting we don't know why something happened—feels intolerable.

Frost's Technique: Casual Speech Masking Precision

Notice how the poem uses everyday language—'locked up,' 'cut them off,' 'molested'—to discuss something that could sound overwrought. The conversational tone ('Yet nobody molested them!') prevents melodrama. Frost achieves this by grounding the poem in specific, ordinary details: nasturtiums, buttons on sleeves, watching the moon at dusk.

[CONTEXT: This poem appears in *New Hampshire* (1923), where Frost frequently explores how rural New England life contains psychological complexity beneath surface simplicity.] The final lines reveal the speaker's actual unreliability—they 'may have been' to blame but 'always thought' it was childhood play. This shift from tentative to habitual belief shows how memory and self-justification work. We don't remember events clearly; we remember the stories we've told ourselves about them. The poem's real subject isn't the locked-out flowers—it's how we construct explanations for life's small mysteries.