Analysis: The Pasture - Robert Frost

The Pasture (1915)

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.

5 I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young,

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I sha'n't be gone long.-- You come too.

—Robert Frost

The first thing we notice is the simple form of the poem. Two quatrains, each ending with the repetition of "I sha'n't be gone long.-- You come too." The rhyme scheme is abbc. 

The function of the poem is very subtle. The perspective is second person, with the speaker, a farmer, talking colloquially to an unknown audience, trying to persuade him or her to join him for pleasure. The setting is the transitional season of autumn. The overall tone of this poem is neutral, almost distracted.

The farmer's task is not a burden, and neither is the company requested of the audience. Both are enjoyable, comfortable tasks.

A recurring theme is the number two. There are two stanzas, two lines of rhyming in each, two cows, and two repetitions of "I sha'n't be gone long.-- You come too."