Summary

The first stanza of the poem introduces an incomplete thought: “One must have a mind of winter / To regard the frost and the boughs / Of the pine-trees crusted with snow” (1-3). Stevens makes a speculative claim while also setting a descriptive scene. Though no person or place has been named yet, the speaker summons an image of winter foliage and invokes an internal, mental state of winter that the poem continues to the develop as it progresses.

In the next stanza, Stevens elaborates on his rumination by suggesting that “a mind of winter” (1) is the only aspect of the temperament needed “To regard the frost and the boughs / Of the pine-trees crusted with snow” (2-3); also requisite is having “been cold a long time” (4), which additionally allows one “To behold the junipers shagged with ice, / The spruces rough in the distant glitter” (5-6). Here...