Dear all,

 

I would appreciate the group's expertise in weighing in on two questions of grammar regarding a Robert Frost poem that relies heavily on the modals would and could.

 

Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same

 

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds’ song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came. (CPPP 308)

Certainly, the modals--along with expressions like be that as may be and admittedly and negators--function as hedges, qualifications, but I wonder whether we might say they make sentences in the text subjunctive, expressive of irreality, or whether we might say they indicate the speaker's stance toward his statement while remaining within the range of expression within the indicative.

 

Also, I would appreciate your confirming for me that the poem is largely or entirely written in declarative sentences. The question interests me because Frost once wrote, "The simple declarative sentence used in making a plain statement is one sound. But Lord love ye it mustn’t be worked to death. It is against the law of nature that whole poems should be written in it. If they are written they won’t be read."

The poem strikes me as a successful violation of this law.

 

In full disclosure, I am seeking your advice toward an essay I am revising that compares Frost's investment of belief in sound to Wallace Stevens' and William Carlos Williams'. The emphasis is upon Frost's notion of sentence sounds, but I'd like to get the grammar right.

 

Thank you very much for any light you can shed.

 

With best wishes,

Natalie