Several themes are touched upon by Frost in this poem including family, power, justice, mercy, age, death, friendship, redemption, guilt and belonging. A major theme in the poem is that of the ‘home’ or homecoming. Despite the fact that Silas’ brother should seemingly be the natural home for Silas to die, he has chosen Warren and Mary’s farm. Warren wrestles with the idea that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.” (Presumably he says this bitterly or sarcastically.) By saying this he is highlighting, at least at that point in the poem, that he does not feel obliged to put a roof over Silas’ head because of his betrayal of leaving the farm. Mary replies, more charitably: “I should have called it / Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” Silas has evidently returned ‘home’ to the farm to try to reaffirm some meaning in his life before he dies by helping with the next season, and trying to redeem his relationship with Harold – neither of these pursuits are fulfilled. The poem does not blatantly imply that Warren and Mary have had children of their own. Childless marriage is a theme that Frost often addressed.
