Robert Frost-The Poems

Once by the Pacific

The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in,

And thought of doing something to the shore

That water never did to land before.

The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,

Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.

You could not tell,

and yet it looked as if

The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,

The cliff in being backed by continent;

It looked as if a night of dark intent Was coming,

and not only a night,

an age.

Someone had better be prepared for rage.

There would be more than ocean-water broken

Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

Robert Frost-The Poems

A Late Walk


When I got up through the mowing field,

The headless aftermath,

Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,

Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,

The whir of sober birdsUp from the tangle of withered weeds

Is sadder than any words.

A tree beside the wall stands bare,

But a leaf that lingered brown,

Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,

Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth,

By picking the faded blue

Of the last remaining aster flower

To carry again to you.

Robert Frost-The Poems

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am,

What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall For a friendly visit.

Robert Frost-The Poems

Love and a Question

A Stranger came to the door at eve,

And he spoke the bridegroom fair.

He bore a green-white stick in his hand,

And, for all burden, care.

He asked with the eyes more than the lips For a shelter for the night,

And he turned and looked at the road afar Without a window light.

The bridegroom came forth into the porch With,

'Let us look at the sky,

And question what of the night to be,

Stranger, you and I.

' The woodbine leaves littered the yard,

The woodbine berries were blue,

Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;

'Stranger, I wish I knew.

' Within, the bride in the dusk alone Bent over the open fire,

Her face rose-red with the glowing coal And the thought of the heart's desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,

Yet saw but her within,

And wished her heart in a case of gold And pinned with a silver pin.

The bridegroom thought it little to give A dole of bread, a purse,

A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,

Or for the rich a curse;

But whether or not a man was asked To mar the love of two By harboring woe in the bridal house,

The bridegroom wished he knew.

Robert Frost-The Poems

Fragmentary Blue

Why make so much of fragmentary blueIn here and there a bird, or butterfly,Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--Though some savants make earth include the sky;And blue so far above us comes so high,It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

Robert Frost-The Poems

Blue Butterfly Day


It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurryThere is more unmixed color on the wingThan flowers will show for days unless they hurry.But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:And now from having ridden out desireThey lie closed over in the wind and clingWhere wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.

Robert Frost-The Poems

Birches


When I see birches bend to left and rightAcross the lines of straighter darker trees,I like to think some boy's been swinging them.But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen themLoaded with ice a sunny winter morningAfter a rain. They click upon themselvesAs the breeze rises, and turn many-colouredAs the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shellsShattering and avalanching on the snow-crustSuch heaps of broken glass to sweep awayYou'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,And they seem not to break; though once they are bowedSo low for long, they never right themselves:You may see their trunks arching in the woodsYears afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hairBefore them over their heads to dry in the sun.But I was going to say when Truth broke inWith all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,I should prefer to have some boy bend themAs he went out and in to fetch the cows--Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,Whose only play was what he found himself,Summer or winter, and could play alone.One by one he subdued his father's treesBy riding them down over and over againUntil he took the stiffness out of them,And not one but hung limp, not one was leftFor him to conquer. He learned all there wasTo learn about not launching out too soonAnd so not carrying the tree awayClear to the ground. He always kept his poiseTo the top branches, climbing carefullyWith the same pains you use to fill a cupUp to the brim, and even above the brim.Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.So was I once myself a swinger of birches.And so I dream of going back to be.It's when I'm weary of considerations,And life is too much like a pathless woodWhere your face burns and tickles with the cobwebsBroken across it, and one eye is weepingFrom a twig's having lashed across it open.I'd like to get away from earth awhileAnd then come back to it and begin over.May no fate willfully misunderstand meAnd half grant what I wish and snatch me awayNot to return. Earth's the right place for love:I don't know where it's likely to go better.I'd like to go by climbing a birch treeAnd climb black branches up a snow-white trunkToward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,But dipped its top and set me down again.That would be good both going and coming back.One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Robert Frost-The Poems

A prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;And give us not to think so far awayAs the uncertain harvest; keep us hereAll simply in the springing of the year.Oh, gives us pleasure in the orchard white,Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;And make us happy in the happy bees,The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.And make us happing in the darting birdTha suddenly above the bees is heard,The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,And off a blossom in mid-air stands still.For this is love and nothing else is love,The which it is reversed for God aboveTo sanctify to what far ends He will,But which it only needs that wee fulfill.

Robert Frost-The Poems

A patch of Old Snow

There's a patch of old snow in a cornerThat I should have guessedWas a blow-away paper the rainHad brought to rest.It is speckled with grime as ifSmall print overspread it,The news of a day I've forgotten--If I ever read it.