Which form best describes "Home Burial"?

A dramatic dialogue in blank verse

A narrative ballad in quatrains

A lyric elegy in rhymed couplets

A dramatic monologue in free verse

When the poem opens, where is the wife and what is she doing?

Starting down the stairs, looking back over her shoulder

Standing at the door, her fingers moving the latch

Sitting in the darkened parlor beside the child's bed

Kneeling in the graveyard beside the child's mound

What does the husband finally see when he looks out the window?

The small family graveyard, with his child's mound

A stranger walking down the road toward the house

The birch fence he built last year, starting to rot

His spade still standing against the wall outside

In the line "I must be wonted to it—that's the reason." what does wonted mean?

So used to it he no longer notices

Warned about it by someone else

Haunted by it in his sleep each night

Longing for it more than he admits

When the husband asks, "Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?" why does Amy answer "Not you!"?

She thinks he has shown no real feeling for the child

She believes the child was never truly his to mourn

She wants to be the one who speaks of the child first

She blames him for the illness that killed their child

What arrangement does the husband propose to Amy?

To avoid any topic she names as off-limits

To move the family graveyard out of her sight

To have a neighbor tend the child's grave for them

To let her stay with her mother for a while

What does the husband say is wrong with the way Amy grieves?

She mourns too long and too hard, shutting him out

She hides her tears so well that he cannot tell

She cares more for the graves of his own people

She spends too many hours tending the child's grave

In the line "And turned on him with such a daunting look," what does daunting mean?

Fierce enough to make him falter

Pleading, as if begging for his help

Gentle, as if ready to forgive him

According to Amy, what did the husband talk about in the kitchen right after digging the grave?

How foggy and rainy days will rot a birch fence

How much the child's coffin and stone would cost

Which of his people lay under the slate stones

Whether the hay was dry enough to bring in yet

What does Amy say about friends who keep company with the dying?

Their minds turn back to life before the burial

They stay faithful long after the grave is closed

They grieve more openly than the dead one's family

They ought to be kept away from a house of mourning

In the line "Friends make pretense of following to the grave," what does pretense mean?

A false show of doing something

A sincere promise to do something

A slow, careful way of doing things

What does the window at the top of the stairs come to stand for in the poem?

Amy's fixed, private gaze on her loss

The neighbors' prying watch over the household

The husband's wish to leave the farm for good

The couple's shared hope for another child

Amy hears the birch-fence remark as proof that he does not care. What reading suggests she may be misjudging him?

Talk of rot may be his roundabout way of facing death

He meant the remark as a joke to lift her spirits

He was quoting a hymn sung at the child's funeral

The fence was a memorial he planned for the child

Frost sometimes splits one line of blank verse between the two speakers. What effect does this have?

It makes their talk sound like clipped, real speech

It signals a switch from blank verse to rhyme

It slows the poem to a calm, formal, hymnlike pace

It marks the places where a narrator steps in to judge them

Which best describes the poem's ending?

Amy is at the open door, and we never learn if she goes

Amy comes back up the stairs and the two make peace

The husband walks out to sit by the child's grave

A neighbor arrives and calms the quarrel at once

Which of these happen in the poem?

The husband sees the graveyard framed in the window

Amy slides down the stairs from beneath his arm

The husband sits with his chin between his fists

Amy watched him dig the grave from the window

Amy remembers fresh earth staining his shoes

The husband threatens to bring her back by force

The husband admits he never visits the child's grave

The husband counts four stones of slate on the hill

Amy agrees to his plan to avoid certain subjects

Amy found the spade hidden away in the barn

Amy shuts the door and sits down beside him

Home Burial quiz

By Robert Frost

A husband and wife on one staircase, grieving the same child in ways neither can understand

18 questions · about 19 minutes

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Questions and answers

1
Question 1. Which form best describes "Home Burial"?
- Correct answer: A dramatic dialogue in blank verse
- A narrative ballad in quatrains
- A lyric elegy in rhymed couplets
- A dramatic monologue in free verse
Right. Two characters speak in their own voices, and the lines are unrhymed iambic pentameter (blank verse), often broken mid-line as the speakers interrupt each other.
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2
Question 2. When the poem opens, where is the wife and what is she doing?
- Standing at the door, her fingers moving the latch
- Correct answer: Starting down the stairs, looking back over her shoulder
- Sitting in the darkened parlor beside the child's bed
- Kneeling in the graveyard beside the child's mound
The poem opens: "She was starting down, / Looking back over her shoulder at some fear." The latch comes later in the quarrel, and the parlor and graveyard are places she remembers or sees, not where she stands.
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3
Question 3. What does the husband finally see when he looks out the window?
- A stranger walking down the road toward the house
- The birch fence he built last year, starting to rot
- His spade still standing against the wall outside
- Correct answer: The small family graveyard, with his child's mound
He murmurs "Oh" and says, "The little graveyard where my people are!" He names three slate stones, one marble one, and "the child's mound."
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4
Question 4. What is the wife's name?
- Ellen
- Mary
- Correct answer: Amy
- Anna
The husband calls her by name twice: "Amy! Don't go to someone else this time." and "Amy! There's someone coming down the road!"
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5
Question 5. In the line "I must be wonted to it—that's the reason." what does wonted mean?
- Warned about it by someone else
- Correct answer: So used to it he no longer notices
- Haunted by it in his sleep each night
- Longing for it more than he admits
Wonted is an old word for accustomed. The husband explains why he "never noticed it from here before": he has grown so used to the graveyard that he stopped seeing it.
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6
Question 6. When the husband asks, "Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?" why does Amy answer "Not you!"?
- She believes the child was never truly his to mourn
- She wants to be the one who speaks of the child first
- She blames him for the illness that killed their child
- Correct answer: She thinks he has shown no real feeling for the child
Amy says, "If you had any feelings, you that dug / With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave." To her, his calm at the burial proved he did not feel the loss.
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7
Question 7. What arrangement does the husband propose to Amy?
- To move the family graveyard out of her sight
- To have a neighbor tend the child's grave for them
- Correct answer: To avoid any topic she names as off-limits
- To let her stay with her mother for a while
He says, "We could have some arrangement / By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off / Anything special you're a-mind to name." He would stay away from any subject she marks as off-limits.
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8
Question 8. What does the husband say is wrong with the way Amy grieves?
- Correct answer: She mourns too long and too hard, shutting him out
- She hides her tears so well that he cannot tell
- She cares more for the graves of his own people
- She spends too many hours tending the child's grave
He asks why she takes her "mother-loss of a first child / So inconsolably—in the face of love," and begs, "Let me into your grief." He thinks her grief has gone on too long and keeps him out.
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9
Question 9. In the line "And turned on him with such a daunting look," what does daunting mean?
- Pleading, as if begging for his help
- Correct answer: Fierce enough to make him falter
- Blank and empty of any feeling
- Gentle, as if ready to forgive him
Daunting means intimidating, enough to shake someone's nerve. Her look so unsettles him that he blurts out his question "twice over before he knew himself."
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10
Question 10. According to Amy, what did the husband talk about in the kitchen right after digging the grave?
- How much the child's coffin and stone would cost
- Which of his people lay under the slate stones
- Correct answer: How foggy and rainy days will rot a birch fence
- Whether the hay was dry enough to bring in yet
Amy quotes him: "Three foggy mornings and one rainy day / Will rot the best birch fence a man can build." She cannot forgive him for talking of "everyday concerns" at such a time.
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11
Question 11. How many of the gravestones are slate?
- Two
- Four
- Five
- Correct answer: Three
He counts them: "There are three stones of slate and one of marble."
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12
Question 12. What does Amy say about friends who keep company with the dying?
- Correct answer: Their minds turn back to life before the burial
- They stay faithful long after the grave is closed
- They grieve more openly than the dead one's family
- They ought to be kept away from a house of mourning
Amy says, "Friends make pretense of following to the grave, / But before one is in it, their minds are turned / And making the best of their way back to life." She sees her husband as one of these.
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13
Question 13. In the line "Friends make pretense of following to the grave," what does pretense mean?
- Correct answer: A false show of doing something
- A sincere promise to do something
- A slow, careful way of doing things
- A legal right to do something
A pretense is a false show. Amy says friends only seem to follow the dead to the grave; in truth "their minds are turned" back to life before the burial is done.
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14
Question 14. What does the window at the top of the stairs come to stand for in the poem?
- The neighbors' prying watch over the household
- Correct answer: Amy's fixed, private gaze on her loss
- The husband's wish to leave the farm for good
- The couple's shared hope for another child
From the window Amy watched him dig the grave, and she keeps returning there to look. It frames "the whole of" the graveyard, just as her grief has framed her whole view, and he "never noticed it from here before."
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15
Question 15. Amy hears the birch-fence remark as proof that he does not care. What reading suggests she may be misjudging him?
- He meant the remark as a joke to lift her spirits
- He was quoting a hymn sung at the child's funeral
- The fence was a memorial he planned for the child
- Correct answer: Talk of rot may be his roundabout way of facing death
A fence that rots after a few foggy mornings is a picture of how quickly things decay. Many readers see the remark as his indirect way of speaking about death, the only way he knows how to speak, which Amy cannot hear.
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16
Question 16. Frost sometimes splits one line of blank verse between the two speakers. What effect does this have?
- It signals a switch from blank verse to rhyme
- It slows the poem to a calm, formal, hymnlike pace
- Correct answer: It makes their talk sound like clipped, real speech
- It marks the places where a narrator steps in to judge them
When Amy asks what he sees and he answers "Just that I see," the two halves share one line of pentameter. The broken lines let interruptions and short replies sound like a real argument while the beat runs on underneath.
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17
Question 17. Which best describes the poem's ending?
- Correct answer: Amy is at the open door, and we never learn if she goes
- Amy comes back up the stairs and the two make peace
- The husband walks out to sit by the child's grave
- A neighbor arrives and calms the quarrel at once
The poem stops mid-crisis: "She was opening the door wider," and he says, "I'll follow and bring you back by force. I will!—" Frost leaves the outcome open.
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18
Question 18. Which of these happen in the poem?
- The husband sees the graveyard framed in the window
  
  Happened
  
  He says, "So small the window frames the whole of it."
- The husband admits he never visits the child's grave
  
  Didn't happen
  
  He says nothing of the kind; what he admits is that he "never noticed it from here before."
- Amy slides down the stairs from beneath his arm
  
  Happened
  
  "She withdrew, shrinking from beneath his arm / That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs."
- The husband counts four stones of slate on the hill
  
  Didn't happen
  
  He counts "three stones of slate and one of marble."
- The husband sits with his chin between his fists
  
  Happened
  
  "He sat and fixed his chin between his fists."
- Amy agrees to his plan to avoid certain subjects
  
  Didn't happen
  
  She never agrees. "Her fingers moved the latch for all reply."
- Amy watched him dig the grave from the window
  
  Happened
  
  "I saw you from that very window there, / Making the gravel leap and leap in air."
- Amy found the spade hidden away in the barn
  
  Didn't happen
  
  He "had stood the spade up against the wall / Outside there in the entry," where she saw it.
- Amy remembers fresh earth staining his shoes
  
  Happened
  
  "You could sit there with the stains on your shoes / Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave."
- Amy shuts the door and sits down beside him
  
  Didn't happen
  
  She does the opposite: "She was opening the door wider."
- The husband threatens to bring her back by force
  
  Happened
  
  "I'll follow and bring you back by force. I will!—"
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Questions and answers

Question 1. Which form best describes "Home Burial"?

Question 2. When the poem opens, where is the wife and what is she doing?

Question 3. What does the husband finally see when he looks out the window?

Question 4. What is the wife's name?

Question 5. In the line "I must be wonted to it—that's the reason." what does wonted mean?

Question 6. When the husband asks, "Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?" why does Amy answer "Not you!"?

Question 7. What arrangement does the husband propose to Amy?

Question 8. What does the husband say is wrong with the way Amy grieves?

Question 9. In the line "And turned on him with such a daunting look," what does daunting mean?

Question 10. According to Amy, what did the husband talk about in the kitchen right after digging the grave?

Question 11. How many of the gravestones are slate?

Question 12. What does Amy say about friends who keep company with the dying?

Question 13. In the line "Friends make pretense of following to the grave," what does pretense mean?

Question 14. What does the window at the top of the stairs come to stand for in the poem?

Question 15. Amy hears the birch-fence remark as proof that he does not care. What reading suggests she may be misjudging him?

Question 16. Frost sometimes splits one line of blank verse between the two speakers. What effect does this have?

Question 17. Which best describes the poem's ending?

Question 18. Which of these happen in the poem?