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Read Ebook: Selected Poems by Frost Robert
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Ebook has 400 lines and 23951 words, and 8 pages
THE PASTURE THE COW IN APPLE-TIME THE RUNAWAY
AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT HOME BURIAL THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN A SERVANT TO SERVANTS THE SELF-SEEKER THE HILL WIFE "OUT, OUT. . ."
PUTTING IN THE SEED GOING FOR WATER MOWING
AFTER APPLE-PICKING BIRCHES THE GUM-GATHERER THE MOUNTAIN THE TUFT OF FLOWERS MENDING WALL AN ENCOUNTER THE WOOD-PILE
SNOW IN THE HOME STRETCH
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN THE OVEN BIRD A VANTAGE POINT THE SOUND OF TREES HYLA BROOK MY NOVEMBER GUEST RANGE-FINDING OCTOBER TO THE THAWING WIND
A TIME TO TALK THE CODE A HUNDRED COLLARS BLUEBERRIES BROWN'S DESCENT
REVELATION STORM-FEAR BOND AND FREE FLOWER-GATHERING RELUCTANCE INTO MY OWN
SELECTED POEMS
THE PASTURE
THE COW IN APPLE-TIME
Something inspires the only cow of late To make no more of a wall than an open gate, And think no more of wall-builders than fools. Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit, She scorns a pasture withering to the root. She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten. She leaves them bitten when she has to fly. She bellows on a knoll against the sky. Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.
THE RUNAWAY
Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall, We stopped by a mountain pasture to say "Whose colt?" A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall, The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt. We heard the miniature thunder where he fled, And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and grey, Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes. "I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow. He isn't winter-broken. It isn't play With the little fellow at all. He's running away. I doubt if even his mother could tell him, 'Sakes, It's only weather.' He'd think she didn't know! Where is his mother? He can't be out alone." And now he comes again with a clatter of stone And mounts the wall again with whited eyes And all his tail that isn't hair up straight. He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies. "Whoever it is that leaves him out so late, When other creatures have gone to stall and bin, Ought to be told to come and take him in."
AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT
HOME BURIAL
"What is it--what?" she said. "Just that I see."
"You don't," she challenged. "Tell me what it is."
Don't, don't, don't, don't," she cried.
She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs; And turned on him with such a daunting look, He said twice over before he knew himself: "Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?"
"Not you! Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't need it! I must get out of here. I must get air. I don't know rightly whether any man can."
"Amy! Don't go to someone else this time. Listen to me. I won't come down the stairs." He sat and fixed his chin between his fists. "There's something I should like to ask you, dear."
"You don't know how to ask it."
"Help me, then."
Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.
"There you go sneering now!"
"I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed. I'm cursed. God, if I don't believe I'm cursed." "I can repeat the very words you were saying.
"There, you have said it all and you feel better. You won't go now. You're crying. Close the door. The heart's gone out of it: why keep it up? Amy! There's someone coming down the road!"
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage To meet him in the doorway with the news And put him on his guard. "Silas is back."
She pushed him outward with her through the door And shut it after her. "Be kind," she said. She took the market things from Warren's arms And set them on the porch, then drew him down To sit beside her on the wooden steps.
"When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I'll not have the fellow back," he said. "I told him so last haying, didn't I? 'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.' What good is he? Who else will harbour him At his age for the little he can do? What help he is there's no depending on. Off he goes always when I need him most.
"Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," Mary said.
"I want him to: he'll have to soon or late."
"Where did you say he'd been?"
"He didn't say. I dragged him to the house, And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke. I tried to make him talk about his travels. Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off."
"What did he say? Did he say anything?"
"But little."
"Anything? Mary, confess He said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me."
"Warren!"
"But did he? I just want to know."
"Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot."
"I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment. He bundles every forkful in its place, And tags and numbers it for future reference, So he can find and easily dislodge it In the unloading. Silas does that well. He takes it out in bunches like big birds' nests. You never see him standing on the hay He's trying to lift, straining to lift himself."
"He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be Some good perhaps to someone in the world. He hates to see a boy the fool of books. Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk, And nothing to look backward to with pride, And nothing to look forward to with hope, So now and never any different."
Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard the tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night. "Warren," she said, "he has come home to die: You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."
"Home," he mocked gently.
"Yes, what else but home?
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