Robert Frost"s early poems establish a philosophy that became, in his later work, more explicit but seldom more powerfully expressed. He be- lieved that activity has meaning only when it is an exertion against opposition, that we establish ourselves, virtually create ourselves, in the range of movement allowed us by external constraints. Speech, as activity, likewise takes on character when placed in opposition to the mechanical rhythms of poetry - and thus for Frost did a philosophy of life cohere with a theory of poetry.