The relationship between nature and beauty is a distinct, if not the characteristic that defines modern poetry, and the theme is present in both Frost and Steven's works. Frost's poem "Design" paints nature as his work. "Mending Wall" for example, is about the literal mending of a stonewall in rural America, an event that happens every spring between farm neighbours. This subject is carefully chosen to receive maximum viewing and secure an audience that can understand.
Unlike Frost, Stevens remained entirely focused on getting his own personal opinions across. Nature as a subject was not that dissimilar to the romanticism ideas, but his imaginative take on the world made his ideas seem quite different. "Sunday Morning" is Stevens" main poem that discusses nature. In basic terms Stevens explains that nature is beautiful, but this is only because beautiful nature is temporary - it only happens once a year. In this particular poem, it is springtime that is being described. Stevens answers the woman's hypothetical questions in the poem by explaining that every time spring returns it is more beautiful that the spring before, simply because it has been absent from the physical world for nine months. Thus, we have forgotten what the beauty of spring really looks like and when it returns we are even more amazed at its physical beauty.
Beauty and nature are traditionally romantic topics, but it is the different interpretations that make them modernist subjects as well. Combined with nature is also religion. The very fact that Frost and Stevens are available to be free to write about religion, or the disbelief of it, makes these poets distinctly modern. The situation in society one hundred years ago would not of enabled these two poets to say what they really felt about religion, and if they had, they would not of made it to print. In a county so heavily ruled by religious beliefs, such extreme public writings about nature creating the world instead of God, as Christianity teaches, would of been scandalous and caused social outrage.
