A woman walking alone at dusk on a quiet road is suddenly overwhelmed by the sound of frogs after a year of silence. She says that if she had remembered how intense that sound could be, she would not have gone out by herself. The frogs’ chorus feels like an ambush. Beauty itself becomes a force that stops her in her tracks, something “savage” rather than merely pretty. She is timid and exposed, halfway between one house and another, with no one to stand between her and the noise. The poem creates an eerie, charged mood: the natural world is not comforting here but almost too alive, too loud, too beautiful to bear. It captures the unease of feeling small and vulnerable when something lovely suddenly turns overwhelming.
Assault — Summary
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound After a year of silence, else I think I should not so have ventured forth alone At dusk upon this unfrequented road. I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk Between me and the crying of the frogs? Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, That am a timid woman, on her way From one house to another!