Good-Bye and Keep Cold (Poem by Robert Lee Frost)

Good-Bye and Keep Cold

By Robert Lee Frost

This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark

And cold to an orchard so young in the bark

Reminds me of all that can happen to harm

An orchard away at the end of the farm

All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.

I don’t want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,

I don’t want it dreamily nibbled for browse

By deer, and I don’t want it budded by grouse.

(If certain it wouldn’t be idle to call

I’d summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall

And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

I don’t want it stirred by the heat of the sun.

(We made it secure against being, I hope,

By setting it out on a northerly slope.)

No orchard’s the worse for the wintriest storm;

But one thing about it, it mustn’t get warm.

“How often already you’ve had to be told,

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below.”

I have to be gone for a season or so.

My business awhile is with different trees,

Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,

And such as is done to their wood with an axe — 

Maples and birches and tamaracks.

I wish I could promise to lie in the night

And think of an orchard’s arboreal plight

When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)

Its heart sinks lower under the sod.

But something has to be left to God.

Poem Analysis:

Robert Frost’s “Good-Bye and Keep Cold” is a deceptively simple poem written in the voice of a farmer who bids farewell to his orchard for the winter. On the surface, the speaker’s advice to the trees — to “keep cold” — may sound paradoxical, but it encapsulates a rich metaphorical reflection on care, restraint, and the patience of natural and emotional cycles. Through personification, irony, and quiet wisdom, Frost subtly explores themes of stewardship, trust, and the danger of premature awakening.

Summary and Structure

The poem is composed in rhymed stanzas with regular meter, a characteristic Frost often uses to balance modern meaning with traditional form. It reads as a farewell address to the speaker’s orchard, treated like a dependent creature — a friend, a child, or even a partner — left alone in winter. The recurring injunction to "keep cold" is both literal and symbolic, suggesting that protection sometimes comes not from warmth, but from waiting and restraint.

Detailed Thematic Analysis

1. Personification and Stewardship

Frost begins by speaking directly to his trees:

This saying good-by on the edge of the dark

And cold to an orchard so young in the bark…

The orchard is “young in the bark,” highlighting its fragility and immaturity. By saying good-bye “on the edge of the dark and cold,” the speaker acknowledges the coming of winter — not just as a season, but as a trial the orchard must endure alone. This creates a tone of protective concern, as if the trees were children being left in uncertain hands.

The speaker personifies the orchard with care:

I’m going to leave you now for a spell

And if my foot is safe on the treadle…

The orchard, like a living being, must now survive without direct supervision. This speaks to trust and responsibility, a common theme in Frost's work — letting go while hoping nature will endure on its own.

2. The Paradox of Protection Through Cold

The poem’s refrain — “Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.” — is paradoxical. Warmth is typically associated with comfort and survival, but in this case, cold is a shield against premature growth:

You’re far too little to go it alone:

Be good while I’m gone.

Guarding yourself from the heat,

Guarding yourself from the heat of the sun.

In agricultural terms, a tree that wakes too early from winter dormancy is vulnerable to late frosts that can kill buds or blossoms. Thus, keeping cold is not neglect — it’s an act of preservation. The message extends metaphorically to human experience: growth and change must happen in the right time, not from impatience or false promise.

3. Fear of Interference and the Unknown Other

Frost expresses concern about external interference while he is away:

I might be gone if need be

Before it is time to begin to thaw…

I can’t be crossing to do it myself

As I ought to have done and perhaps have done,

But I may be counted on not to forget

If I can’t learn whether I’ve helped or hurt.

This moment reveals the speaker’s self-doubt and anxiety about his absence. He worries about the influence of someone else who may not understand the orchard’s needs:

I’m especially not to blame if someone else’s

Tree should be dying from heat today…

There is an implied warning against over-care or mismanagement, highlighting Frost’s theme of limits to human control in the face of nature’s rhythms. He fears good intentions with bad timing, which can do more harm than neglect.

4. Control, Humility, and Hope

The speaker’s tone is affectionate, but also one of measured humility. He acknowledges he may never know whether his care helped or harmed:

I may not know, though I try to learn

How your nature is bent, to return

If you call to me to come again…

Here, Frost strikes at the heart of human stewardship: we act with limited knowledge, guided by hope rather than certainty. The speaker must relinquish control and let the orchard face the season on its own terms.

Style and Poetic Devices

• Tone: Gentle, protective, wistful, with philosophical undercurrents.
• Imagery: Rural, natural, tactile — invoking trees, cold, sun, bark, sap, and treadle (foot lever).
• Personification: The orchard is addressed like a sentient being.
• Symbolism: Cold as protection; warmth as premature awakening; orchard as metaphor for fragile potential.
• Irony: The title's pairing of "good-bye" with "keep cold" invites reflection — we usually equate warmth with care, but here, distance and cold are the truest expressions of love.

“Good-Bye and Keep Cold” is a subtle, beautifully understated poem that uses a simple agricultural act as a metaphor for the challenges of loving stewardship. Frost reminds us that sometimes the best care is restraint, and that growth requires patience and timing, not intervention or force. In this, the poem becomes not just a farewell to an orchard, but a quiet meditation on trust, aging, and the wisdom of non-interference.

Frost, as always, speaks to the human condition through nature, revealing that in both trees and people, true resilience lies in respecting natural rhythms — even when we must step away.