Robert Frost’s “A Silken Tent”, a beautiful poem written in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, tales of a tent in a field, but perhaps the poet used this tent to represent something more.  Frost uses the silken tent as a simile for a beautiful woman.  The first four lines of the poem introduce the woman as being free and not tied down to this world.  The next seven lines speak on the true-ness of her soul as the cause of her freedom, and in the final lines we see her bound to the earth as troubles and worries enter the picture.

            Frost establishes his simile with the very first line, “She is as in a field a silken tent.”  The word “silken” alludes to her beauty as silk is a beautiful material, and “in a field” is significant in that a field is a large open area, thus representing freedom.  The following three lines describe a beautiful day when all worries and troubles cease, and the woman feels free and easy.  The words of line two “midday/sunny summer breeze” give the setting as a nice summer day, and lines three and four state that the guys, meaning cords or ties, “relent/sways at ease” signifying that our maiden has not a care in the world.

            Then the poem goes into detail as to the cause of her freedom.  Lines five through seven describe the tent’s “supporting central cedar pole” as “the pinnacle” or the highest peak that “signifies the sureness of the soul.”  Her freedom is made evident by “owe naught to any single cord” in the eight line.  “Loosely bound by/ties of love and thought” in lines nine and ten state her only bonds or ties to our world is her loved ones.  The Line “To everything the compass round,” solidifies this.

            Sadly we leave our maiden as her freedom is taken away in the final three lines of “A Silken Tent.”  The lady is bound to earth as one of her ties or loved ones is pulled “slightly taut” or tight “by the capriciousness” or whim of the cruel world.  The final line, “Is of the slightest bondage made aware” leaves with the woman tied back down to earth.

            The simile has been utilized by poets since the creation of the genre, and as we see with “A Silken Tent” Frost is a master of its uses.  Frost uses a tent as a simile to describe a beautiful woman who at the beginning of the poem is free, but by the conclusion is brought down by the realities of the harsh world.  In a quote from the poet himself he describes poetry as “a performance in words,” and Frost gives us another great performance with “A Silken Tent.”