The Buck in the Snow – Edna

St Vincent Millay
L.O. Understanding the poem and its themes and language

On entry – solve this poetic riddle:

What Am I?

I fall but I never get back up

I’m unique but I’m not a fingerprint
I’m sometimes part of a ball but I’m not
leather
If I get warm enough I go away but I’m
not a winter wardrobe
I’m sometimes part of a man but I don’t
have any skin
 Starter activity
• If you had to write a poem about love, life and death
AND this poem had to involve animals, what
animals would they be and what ‘story’ / ‘scene’
would we be reading?
• You’ll get 5 minutes to come up with a plan for this.
Good luck! End
www.A6training.co.uk
 Let’s read and compare
• Read ‘The Buck in the Snow’ and write down how this
poem approaches the subject(s) you just wrote about.
• What’s your first impression? Does she manage to make
you think about love, life and death? Are there any
similarities with the ideas you just came up with yourself?
 The Poet: Edna St.
Vincent Millay (1892-
1950)
• Millay was born in Rockland, near Maine's Penobscot Bay; this is
often a setting for her poems.
• She was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer
Prize for Poetry in 1923.
• The poet Richard Wilbur once said: "She wrote some of the best
sonnets of the century."
 The speaker begins this piece by describing for the
Just as she began this
reader, and her listener, a specific scene. The poet has
stanza she ends with,
chosen to write this piece with a certain listener in mind.
“hemlocks bowed with snow.”
The speaker is addressing the entire poem to one person,
Here is where they
or perhaps to one certain kind of person who needs to
disappeared, the last place
hear what she has to say.
she saw them. At this pint in
the piece the tone is quite
White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow,calm and pleasant. There is
Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered nothing to be
buck and hisoverly
doe
Standing in the apple-orchard? I saw them. I saw concerned  about,
them suddenly go, a reader
Tails up, with long leaps lovely and slow, should not be expecting the
Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks bowed turn that
withcomes
snow. with the
floating middle line. 
The scene that the speaker describes is one of
peace. There is a “White sky,” that might seem cold
and distant, but at this moment fits perfectly into the
snowy world she is The deer There
within. movedaregracefully
“hemlocks”through
all this pristine winter landscape.
around the speakerTheywhich
take “long”
are soand “lovely”
heavy with leaps.
snow It is as if they are moving in slow
thatnext
theyline motion,or
arebegins
“bowing,” although
bending.the speaker knows
Amazingly, this isn’t’ the case. The last she
with She
The with her speaking to the listener. is asking him/her a specific
only a few wordssaw ofpoet
the has
animals, at least for now,
a atwas the sight of their tails going
question, if they sawthe
the “antlered been
buckable
andtohis
paint
doe” the “beginning of evening.” They
clear image inof the over the “stone-wall into the wood.” 
her apple-orchard.”
world. 
were, she says, “Standing Whether the listener saw them or not,
the speaker is ready to interject saying that she did. She “saw them” and then “saw them
suddenly go.” The animals bounded off without a moments notice. 
Now lies he here, his wild blood
scalding the snow.
• This line state that “Now” the buck is in the
snow at the speaker’s feet, she has found
him with “his wild blood scalding the
snow.” The deer’s life force, something so
pure and alive, is fading away. It is moving
away in the form of blood into the cold icy
world that killed him.
 In this particular situation,
Now that the poem has completed its turn to the death could, she states, have
darker side of life, the speaker is able to take her moved from “Under the heavy
time contemplating what it means to die and how hemlocks” which are moving
death is a “strange…thing.”  under the weight of the snow
they bare. It could already be
on its way to its next victim.
How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers
The speaker does not doubt
The buck in the snow. that the next victim could be
How strange a thing,—a mile away by now, it may be, anther innocent creature,
Under the heavy hemlocks that as the moments passperhaps even the doe herself.
Shift their loads a little, letting fall a feather of snow—The now lonely animal is filled
Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe. with “Life” at the moment,
staring out into the world, but
The final sestet begins with just that death could soon come along
statement that death is a “strange… behind. 
thing” able to bring a beautiful, strong
animal like a “buck” to “his knees …in
the snow.” She does not feel like there She continues on through this section of the
should be any force on earth capable of poem to speak of death’s ability to move
this feat. A buck’s life should not drain from place to place. It is not restricted by any
out of it, nor should its “antlers” be in human, animal or immaterial force. It goes
the snow. where it needs to when it needs to. 
• Line-by-line Analysis and Figurative Language
– White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow, – The color
white signifies peace but hemlock signifies death. She is using
contrast to play with the reader’s emotions.
– Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered buck and
his doe – Millay is furthering the setting. This line shows us that
this is happening in the past.
– Standing in the apple-orchard? I saw them. I saw them suddenly
go, – She sees the deer in the orchard but they get spooked. Is it
because of the author or something else?
– Tails up, with long leaps lovely and slow, – This is just some nice
imagery so we can imagine the looks of the deer.
– Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks bowed with snow.
– Again Millay is using “hemlocks” which signifies death.
• Now lies he here, his wild blood scalding the snow. – Now she changes
the grammar from past to present. The author now sees the deer, dead.
Perhaps it was a hunter who scared the deer earlier.
• How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers
– “Strange” is an interesting word to use here. Why is it “strange”? Likely
because the buck looks majestic, so seeing it dead is heartbreaking and
“weird”.
• The buck in the snow. – A change of pace for the poem to help divide the
poem a little more without having to create a new stanza.
• How strange a thing,—a mile away by now, it may be, – Millay is
repeating “how strange a thing”. “Thing” is likely referring to both the
situation and the deer. “Strange” because the deer was with her partner
yet had to run away due to what is likely a hunter.
• Under the heavy hemlocks that as the moments pass – Again, the poet is
using the word “hemlocks”.
• Shift their loads a little, letting fall a feather of snow— – The author
changes the tone once again, focusing back on nature instead of death.
She sees the deer move and the snow fall off of it.
• Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe. – Once more Millay
focuses on using opposites. She uses “life” this time to end the poem.
 The poem in detail
• Who or what is the speaker addressing in this poem?
Nature / the sky which are white and
What is this ‘thing’ like? & Whatpure effect
but diddo this
nothing todirect
stop death. It
makes us feel something unfair
address and description have? happened, she seems to accuse the
sky for not doing anything.
• What happens to the tone &Wemood realise as
the aspeaker
result of
saw the
but didn’t do
anything either. Tone more self
repeated ‘I saw’ in line 3? accusatory? She also seems to have
been impressed by them.

• What might ‘the apple orchard’ and the ‘hemlocks’ allude

to in lines 3 andGarden
5? What does
of Eden the itpoet
& leaving seemForeshadowing
for poison. to be telling
death and making us realise that we have all decided to
us here? leave safety and purity when we left the Garden of Eden.
Perhaps she is commenting on the randomness of life and
death.
 The poem in detail,
stanza 2 & 3
• What’s the effect of the one-line stanza in the middle? What is
The effect of leaving safety: death.
she showing us? It is quite abrupt and definite in this one-line.
• What do the repeated contemplations by the speaker ‘How
Human reasoning and thinking
strange…’ seem to show us? for ourselves which made us
• Could the falling ‘feather of snow’ from (like the buck) leave paradise.
hemlock symbolise
anything? If so, what & to what effect? Nature is crying for loss of
life and loss of innocence
• Life is personified in the final line, what does the poet show us
with this and what is the effect? Life is looking out and attentive, so
it’s ready to go out and explore: life
is about choosing danger and
straying form the pure.
•  What is the effect of repetition of O sound
in the poem?
The repeated O sounds
call up the long lovely
leaps of the deer. And
notice the effect when she
finally interrupts the
rhyme scheme.
 Plenary
• Write down in your own words and be
ready to share:
• What is Ms Millay telling us in her
poem ‘The Buck in the Snow’?