"The Snow Man" considers what it would be like to look at the world objectively—and in particular, to observe a winter scene without personifying it as bleak or miserable. In other words, the poem wonders if it's possible to separate objective reality from subjective experience, to tune into the world as it is rather than imposing emotions or symbolism onto what one sees.
The speaker who will explore this idea cuts an appropriately distant and objective figure. Rather than describing their own experience, they start the poem standing at a remove from what they see, simply observing that:
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
The impersonal pronoun "one" suggests that the speaker is dealing with matters that, in their opinion, are relevant to everybody. So does the poem's title. The word "snowman"—meaning the familiar carrot-nosed snow sculpture—typically doesn't use a space between "snow" and "man." From the beginning, then, the poem hints that it's not about Frosty, but about "man" in a wider sense—that is, human beings and the human condition.
Anyone, this speaker says, would need a "mind of winter" in order to see the icy trees clearly. This rich, mysterious idea might suggest more than one thing:
- A "mind of winter" could be a mind so in tune with this particular season that it's at one with the environment. Such a mind, presumably, wouldn't interpret winter as harsh or unforgiving, but just as itself, winter being winter.
- A "mind of winter" could also be a Zen-like state of non-judgment. This mind, like the landscape the speaker describes, might be a bare, sparse environment, in which thoughts like winter symbolizes death aren't even present. If perceiving with the human mind is like looking at something through a lens, this "mind of winter" attempts to remove the lens.
In this first stanza, the hypothetical "mind of winter" observes pine trees covered with frost and snow. That's all it does—"regard" them, rather than associate them with human emotions or ideas. Looking at the world so carefully and unjudgmentally, this poem will suggest, might be a near-impossible feat.
The speaker will develop their ideas about perception and reality over the course of a single long sentence, carefully shaped into five tercets (or three-line stanzas) of unmetered, unrhymed free verse. In this neat, compact shape, the speaker's voice feel careful, measured, and still as the snowy scene.