Keats "Bright Star" and Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" although similar in their address to a star differ in form, tone and theme. The latter contains an illusion to the former which brings Keats' themes into the poem. In order to compare these poems it is necessary to look carefully at their themes and constructions. "Bright Star" is a sonnet in traditional iambic pentameter. Its tone is elegiac as it celebrates the woman's beauty and his love for her in his plea for steadfastness. The poem opens with an apostrophe to the star which calls our attention to his plea. The verbs "would" and "were" indicate his wish to be like the star whom he addresses as "thou." The star is "hung" in the night, a pleasant image, and he uses a simile to compare it with Eremite, a hermit, who presumably sat apart from the world watching. The eyelids of this star (the star is given anthropomorphic qualities) are eternally apart -- always watching, "patiently" and "sleeplessly." Keats then enumerates what this star watches. It watches water -- which is also steadfast as indicated by the comparison "priest-like." The waters that surround the land Keats says are performing ablutions or cleansings and blessings on the land. The star also gazes upon the snow. He uses the metaphor of snow as a "mask" (more personification) as it hides the mountains and moors. The "m" alliteration emphasizes the falling of the snow. The repetition of "of" underlines the parallel structure and idea of the two scenes the star regards. The rhythm of this 2nd quatrain is slow and peaceful like the scene. Then Keats puts a "No -- " which interrupts this peaceful rhythm; he does not want to look at pastoral scenery but at his lover. The "still steadfast, still unchangeable" emphasizes the fact that this constancy is similar to that of the star regarding the earth. The poet wishes to be lying on his lover's breast which he implies is like a pillow and describes as "ripening" which emphasizes her fertility. Line 11 has a rhythm of a "fall and swell" like her breathing. He will be in a state of "unrest", yet a happy one. The repetition of "still" underlines his intense desire and the "t" alliteration the tenderness of her breath. The final line sets up a contrast and the hyphen divides it. He will live forever this way, or else he will die in a "swoon" -- a faintness of overwhelming love. Either way he spends eternity faithful and steadfast to his lover. The rhyme in the final 2 lines adds to his summing-up quality of the couplet where he expresses his main theme -- to be as steadfast to her as a "bright star" is to the countryside.
Frost's poem is quite different. The form is a bit freer, the poem is written in 25 lines of octosyllables with a conversational tone and a varying rhyme scheme. Frost too looks to the star to be steadfast, although in his case it is steadfast in moral or political beliefs, not in love. Similar to Keats' poem, Frost begins with an apostrophe, and adds to it "(the fairest one in sight)," an humorous allusion to the child's tale of wishing on the fairest star. Similarly, we derive a sort of wish from this star. He calls the star "your loftiness," another humorous play on "your highness", reflecting its physical and moral height above us. The poet as "we" (meaning all men) grants the star some anonymity, some aspects of a hermit isolated and watching the earth as he gives him "some obscurity of cloud." Dark brings out the light -- this is a subtle indication that "we" see the star as it is the stoic steadfastness when something "dark" and evil is taking place on earth. But Frost does not allow the star to get away with saying nothing -- his "position" requires his contributing advice. Frost implores him to say something catchy that we can cling to -- and the run on line emphasizes the energy of this begging. "Say something!" (9) disrupts the rhythm and adds even more desperation to his plea. All the star says is "I burn." Frost with a tongue-in-cheek tone implores him to add scientific details--the kind humans like to deal with. He speaks of "Farenheit" and "Centigrade" like they are languages--and capitalizes "Language" for this purpose -- we understand facts. But it doesn't really help that much, he says. In line 18 Frost changes to speaking of the star as "it" and alludes directly to Keats' poem. Frost says that the star is like Keats' Eremite, the star that steadfastly watched the goings-on on earth. In using this allusion Frost not only continues the "poetic tradition" but adds all the depth of meaning of Keats' poem to his own. The star doesn't want much of us -- only to stay above us. He says that "when the mob is swayed" or when social, political, or moral upheaval takes place and the norm is to be radical, the star likes being above it all, condescendingly regarding the earth. When this happens, we should "choose something like a star" and concentrate on it. In the final line the similarity between "stay" and "staid" emphasizes that we must emulate the star in being constant and moderate while society may revolve around us in social or political turmoil. This "staidness" is our key to survival like the stars'. Therefore, one can see that these poems although similar in their title and central image of the star differ in their themes, form and treatment of the author's ideas.
