Selected Poems · OmniClassics

SELECTED POEMS BY ROBERT FROST NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1923 TO HELEN THOMAS IN MEMORY OF EDWARD THOMAS PUBLISHERS' NOTE The poems included in this volume are reprinted from "Mountain Interval" "North of Boston" and "A Boy's Will." CONTENTS I THE PASTURE THE COW IN APPLE-TIME THE RUNAWAY II 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. . ." III PUTTING IN THE SEED GOING FOR WATER MOWING IV AFTER APPLE-PICKING BIRCHES THE GUM-GATHERER THE MOUNTAIN THE TUFT OF FLOWERS MENDING WALL AN ENCOUNTER THE WOOD-PILE V SNOW IN THE HOME STRETCH VI 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 VII A TIME TO TALK THE CODE A HUNDRED COLLARS BLUEBERRIES BROWN'S DESCENT VIII REVELATION STORM-FEAR BOND AND FREE FLOWER-GATHERING RELUCTANCE INTO MY OWN SELECTED POEMS THE PASTURE I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; I'll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I shan't be gone long.—-You come too. I'm going out to fetch the little calf That's standing by the mother. It's so young, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I shan't be gone long.—-You come too. 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." II AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept him from remembering what it was That brought him to that creaking room was age. He stood with barrels round him—-at a loss. And having scared the cellar under him In clomping there, he scared it once again In clomping off;—-and scared the outer night, Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar Of trees and crack of branches, common things, But nothing so like beating on a box. A light he was to no one but himself Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, A quiet light, and then not even that. He consigned to the moon, such as she was, So late-arising, to the broken moon As better than the sun in any case For such a charge, his snow upon the roof, His icicles along the wall to keep; And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted, And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept. One aged man—-one man—-can't keep a house, A farm, a countryside, or if he can, It's thus he does it of a winter night. HOME BURIAL He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: "What is it you see From up there always—-for I want to know." She turned and sank upon her skirts at that, And her face changed from terrified to dull. He said to gain time: "What is it you see?" Mounting until she cowered under him. "I will find out now—you must tell me, dear." She, in her place, refused him any help With the least stiffening of her neck and silence. She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see, Blind creature; and a while he didn't see. But at last he murmured, "Oh," and again, "Oh." "What is it—what?" she said. "Just that I see." "You don't," she challenged. "Tell me what it is." "The wonder is I didn't see at once. I never noticed it from here before. I must be wonted to it—-that's the reason. The little graveyard where my people are! So small the window frames the whole of it. Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it? There are three stones of slate and one of marble, Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight On the sidehill. We haven't to mind _those._ But I understand: it is not the stones, But the child's mound----" 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. "My words are nearly always an offence. I don't know how to speak of anything So as to please you. But I might be taught I should suppose. I can't say I see how. A man must partly give up being a man With women-folk. We could have some arrangement By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off Anything special you're a-mind to name. Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love. Two that don't love can't live together without them. But two that do can't live together with them." She moved the latch a little. "Don't—-don't go. Don't carry it to someone else this time. Tell me about it if it's something human. Let me into your grief. I'm not so much Unlike other folks as your standing there Apart would make me out. Give me my chance. I do think, though, you overdo it a little. What was it brought you up to think it the thing To take your mother-loss of a first child So inconsolably—in the face of love. You'd think his memory might be satisfied----" "There you go sneering now!" "I'm not, I'm not! You make me angry. I'll come down to you. God, what a woman! And it's come to this, A man can't speak of his own child that's dead." "You can't because you don't know how. If you had any feelings, you that dug With your own hand—-how could you?—-his little grave; I saw you from that very window there, Making the gravel leap and leap in air, Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly And roll back down the mound beside the hole. I thought, Who is that man? I didn't know you. And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs To look again, and still your spade kept lifting. Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why, But I went near to see with my own eyes. You could sit there with the stains on your shoes Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave And talk about your everyday concerns. You had stood the spade up against the wall Outside there in the entry, for I saw it." "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. 'Three foggy mornings and one rainy day Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.' Think of it, talk like that at such a time! What had how long it takes a birch to rot To do with what was in the darkened parlour? You _couldn't_ care! The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all. No, from the time when one is sick to death, One is alone, and he dies more alone. Friends make pretence of following to the grave, But before one is in it, their minds are turned And making the best of their way back to life And living people, and things they understand. But the world's evil. I won't have grief so If I can change it. Oh, I won't, I won't!" "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!" "_You_-—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—- Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you----" "If—-you—-do!" She was opening the door wider. "Where do you mean to go? First tell me that. I'll follow and bring you back by force. I _will!_—-" 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. 'He thinks he ought to earn a little pay, Enough at least to buy tobacco with, So he won't have to beg and be beholden.' 'All right,' I say, 'I can't afford to pay Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.' 'Someone else can.' 'Then someone else will have to.' I shouldn't mind his bettering himself If that was what it was. You can be certain, When he begins like that, there's someone at him Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—- In haying time, when any help is scarce. In winter he comes back to us. I'm done." "Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," Mary said. "I want him to: he'll have to soon or late." "He's worn out. He's asleep beside the stove. When I came up from Rowe's I found him here, Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, A miserable sight, and frightening, too—- You needn't smile—-I didn't recognise him—- I wasn't looking for him—-and he's changed. Wait till you see." "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." "Of course he did. What would you have him say? Surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man