One must have a mind of winter / To regard the frost and the boughs / Of the pine-trees crusted with snow
-- Speaker (Lines 1-3)

Importance: These lines form the first stanza of the poem in which the author postulates a hypothetical subject observing an imagined scene in winter.

And have been cold a long time
-- Speaker (Line 4)

Importance: This first line from the second stanza of the poem elaborates on a supposition made in the previous stanza. It suggests that the “mind of winter” (1) referred to in the first line of the poem is an accrued state of being. The associative resonance of having “been cold a long time” (4) is that of a frigid corpse.

and not to think / Of any misery in the sound of the wind, / In the sound of a few leaves,
-- Speaker (Lines 7-9)

Importance: These lines from the third stanza of the poem elaborate on the supposition from the first stanza. The speaker explains that the “mind...