ROBERT FROST
Here is a poet that spans several periods of literature in America, and as a result is abused and ignored by critics and the ‘intelligentsia.’ Born in 1874, he was part of Stephen Crane and Mark Twain’s traditions, but dying in 1963 his works were on a par with T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. [In fact his first published poem was before Crane published anything, while his last great moment was reading poetry at J.F.K.’s inauguration in Washington D.C.]
The reasons Frost is one of my favorite poets are many, and I don’t really care if some critics think he is not modern enough. Remember, I’m the old dude who likes to read Homer and Dante and Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson and, yes, the Bible as literature and poetry too… Frost is a poet that can easily be overlooked due to his easy cadence and regional topics. He writes of New England and farming and hard work with calloused hands. I thoroughly enjoy the narrative poems and I would put them on a par with the great Robert Browning [cf. Andrea del Sarto]. His ease of reading is right up there with Dickinson or Byron. And yet, there is heft and depth to his poetry that is easy to miss, despite it being memorable and popular.
The reasons Frost is one of my favorite poets are many, and I don’t really care if some critics think he is not modern enough. Remember, I’m the old dude who likes to read Homer and Dante and Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson and, yes, the Bible as literature and poetry too… Frost is a poet that can easily be overlooked due to his easy cadence and regional topics. He writes of New England and farming and hard work with calloused hands. I thoroughly enjoy the narrative poems and I would put them on a par with the great Robert Browning [cf. Andrea del Sarto]. His ease of reading is right up there with Dickinson or Byron. And yet, there is heft and depth to his poetry that is easy to miss, despite it being memorable and popular.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
There was a time when this was required reading and memorization for school children, at least in New England. It works at so many levels, and while I don’t want to go into great detail, I do want to point at some of these discoveries for me, at least. There is an undercurrent of danger here, that can only come from knowing how risky it is to be on a horse in the midst of a snowstorm at night. One isn’t sure if the woods are alluring because of the beauty, or because of a desire to enter in and stop striving in life altogether. If one stops too long, not just the woods fill up with snow, but one becomes covered over as well. The ‘little pony’ does not seem strong or even happy to be stopping as the snow comes down. The simple Currier and Ives Christmas Card scene that this seems to invoke is shallow in the extreme. And the decision NOT to stop is courageous and admirable. I can’t stop now. I have miles to go before I sleep. I have struggle ahead of me and a direction and destination on this journey. I won’t stop.
By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
There was a time when this was required reading and memorization for school children, at least in New England. It works at so many levels, and while I don’t want to go into great detail, I do want to point at some of these discoveries for me, at least. There is an undercurrent of danger here, that can only come from knowing how risky it is to be on a horse in the midst of a snowstorm at night. One isn’t sure if the woods are alluring because of the beauty, or because of a desire to enter in and stop striving in life altogether. If one stops too long, not just the woods fill up with snow, but one becomes covered over as well. The ‘little pony’ does not seem strong or even happy to be stopping as the snow comes down. The simple Currier and Ives Christmas Card scene that this seems to invoke is shallow in the extreme. And the decision NOT to stop is courageous and admirable. I can’t stop now. I have miles to go before I sleep. I have struggle ahead of me and a direction and destination on this journey. I won’t stop.
Mending Wall
By Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Yet again here, the homeliness and ease of reading and interest in working the earth belies the depth of simile and metaphor in this poem. It works on SO many levels, especially in this age of Trump and border insecurity. But the good fences can also be applied to personal relations, assumptions of what is expected in living this life. Our hands become calloused with heavy lifting that, in truth, is really not needed if only trust and openness were embraced. This is a fine poem.
By Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Yet again here, the homeliness and ease of reading and interest in working the earth belies the depth of simile and metaphor in this poem. It works on SO many levels, especially in this age of Trump and border insecurity. But the good fences can also be applied to personal relations, assumptions of what is expected in living this life. Our hands become calloused with heavy lifting that, in truth, is really not needed if only trust and openness were embraced. This is a fine poem.
After Apple-Picking
By Robert Frost
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
One who has worked hard and long on a rebuilding project in their home, or on a farm or ranch, or even a Ph. D. knows the gift of timing, when one can sit back and state that all is done. Enough is enough. And even though we feel the body memory of a ladder or bruised arm or are insecure about the bibliography in our thesis, comes a time to stop. This poem has all this and much more. There is a sense of transcendence that is in the first few lines that comes straight out of humankind’s yearning for the Other: a ladder pointed toward heaven. And there is a recognition all through this poem that the “great harvest” is upon us, sometimes even before we are ready for it, since there are still apples on the tree, and some are sent to the cider-apple heap “as of no worth” when in our heart we know this is not right. It matters not whether one reads this at the back end of sixth decade of life or on the front of the second, there is a tendency to peer through this life of ours as if looking through a pane of ice, only to have it melt away.
By Robert Frost
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
One who has worked hard and long on a rebuilding project in their home, or on a farm or ranch, or even a Ph. D. knows the gift of timing, when one can sit back and state that all is done. Enough is enough. And even though we feel the body memory of a ladder or bruised arm or are insecure about the bibliography in our thesis, comes a time to stop. This poem has all this and much more. There is a sense of transcendence that is in the first few lines that comes straight out of humankind’s yearning for the Other: a ladder pointed toward heaven. And there is a recognition all through this poem that the “great harvest” is upon us, sometimes even before we are ready for it, since there are still apples on the tree, and some are sent to the cider-apple heap “as of no worth” when in our heart we know this is not right. It matters not whether one reads this at the back end of sixth decade of life or on the front of the second, there is a tendency to peer through this life of ours as if looking through a pane of ice, only to have it melt away.
Fire and Ice
By Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
This poem is nice.
By Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
This poem is nice.