Robert Frost

“ Mending Wall 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. ”

“ What I like best's the lay of different farms, Coming out on them from a stretch of woods, Or over a hill or round a sudden corner. I like to find folks getting out in spring, Raking the dooryard, working near the house. Later they get out further in the fields. Everything's shut sometimes except the barn; The family's all away in some back meadow. There's a hay load a-coming—when it comes. And later still they all get driven in: The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees To whips and poles. There's nobody about. ”

“ Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow. That's always the way with the blueberries, though: There may not have been the ghost of a sign Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, But get the pine out of the way, you may burn The pasture all over until not a fern Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, And presto, they're up all around you as thick And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick. ”

“ They kept him Locked up for years back there at the old farm. I've been away once—yes, I've been away. The State Asylum. I was prejudiced; I wouldn't have sent anyone of mine there; You know the old idea—the only asylum Was the poorhouse, and those who could afford, Rather than send their folks to such a place, Kept them at home; and it does seem more human. But it's not so: the place is the asylum. There they have every means proper to do with, And you aren't darkening other people's lives— Worse than no good to them, and they no good To you in your condition ”

“ "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in." ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It always seems to me a sort of mark To measure how far fifty years have brought us. Why not sit down if you are in no haste? These doorsteps seldom have a visitor. The warping boards pull out their own old nails With none to tread and put them in their place. ”

“ Silas is what he is—we wouldn't mind him— But just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide. He never did a thing so very bad. He don't know why he isn't quite as good As anyone. He won't be made ashamed To please his brother, worthless though he is." "I can't think Si ever hurt anyone." "No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back. He wouldn't let me put him on the lounge. ”

“ The life is not yet all gone out of it. And come and make your summer dwelling here, And perhaps she will come, still unafraid, And sit before you in the open door With flowers in her lap until they fade, But not come in across the sacred sill——" "I wonder where your oracle is tending. You can see that there's something wrong with it, Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grandsir's Nor Granny's, surely. Call up one of them. They have best right to be heard in this place." ”

“ It's all our music. One ought as a good villager to like it. No doubt it has a sort of prosperous sound, And it's our life." "Yes, when it's not our death." "You make that sound as if it wasn't so With everything. What we live by we die by. I wonder where my lawyer is. ”

“ They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet." "Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live, Just taking what Nature is willing to give, Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow." "I wish you had seen his perpetual bow— And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned, And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned." "I wish I knew half what the flock of them know Of where all the berries and other things grow, Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop. ”

“ You left the rest for seed, And for the backwoods woodchuck. You're the girl! A Ram's Horn orchid seedpod for a woodchuck Sounds something like. Better than farmer's beans To a discriminating appetite, Though the Ram's Horn is seldom to be had In bushel lots—doesn't come on the market. But, Anne, I'm troubled; have you told me all? You're hiding something. That's as bad as lying. You ask this lawyer man. And it's not safe With a lawyer at hand to find you out. Nothing is hidden from some people, Anne. ”

“ We were but sixty voters last election. We can't in nature grow to many more: That thing takes all the room!" He moved his goad. The mountain stood there to be pointed at. Pasture ran up the side a little way, And then there was a wall of trees with trunks: After that only tops of trees, and cliffs Imperfectly concealed among the leaves. A dry ravine emerged from under boughs Into the pasture. "That looks like a path. Is that the way to reach the top from here?— Not for this morning, but some other time: I must be getting back to breakfast now." ”

“ But most of all He thinks if he could have another chance To teach him how to build a load of hay——" "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. ”

“ Most of the change we think we see in life Is due to truths being in and out of favour. As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish I could be monarch of a desert land I could devote and dedicate forever To the truths we keep coming back and back to. ”

“ 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 sha'n't be gone long.—You come too. ”

“ Sometimes he joins them for a day or two And sees old friends he somehow can't get near. They meet him in the general store at night, Pre-occupied with formidable mail, Rifling a printed letter as he talks. They seem afraid. He wouldn't have it so: Though a great scholar, he's a democrat, If not at heart, at least on principle. ”

“ It's seldom I get down except for meals, though. Folks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep, All in a family row down to the youngest." "One would suppose they might not be as glad To see you as you are to see them." ”

“ Let him get off and he'll be everywhere Around us, looking out of trees and bushes Till I sha'n't dare to set a foot outdoors. And I can't stand it. Joel, let me go!" "But it's nonsense to think he'd care enough." "You mean you couldn't understand his caring. Oh, but you see he hadn't had enough— Joel, I won't—I won't—I promise you. We mustn't say hard things. ”

“ "He never got up high enough to see. That's why I don't advise your trying this side. He tried this side. I've always meant to go And look myself, but you know how it is: It doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain You've worked around the foot of all your life. ”

“ It's different with a man, at least with John: He knows he's kinder than the run of men. Better than married ought to be as good As married—that's what he has always said. I know the way he's felt—but all the same! ”

“ 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. ”

“ I'm just as glad she made me keep hands off, For, dear me, why abandon a belief Merely because it ceases to be true. ”

“ But it's not medicine— Lowe is the only doctor's dared to say so— It's rest I want—there, I have said it out— From cooking meals for hungry hired men And washing dishes after them—from doing Things over and over that just won't stay done. By good rights I ought not to have so much Put on me, but there seems no other way. Len says one steady pull more ought to do it. He says the best way out is always through. And I agree to that, or in so far As that I can see no way out but through— Leastways for me—and then they'll be convinced. ”

“ You know how politely he always goes by. But he thought a big thought—I could tell by his eye— Which being expressed, might be this in effect: 'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect, To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'" "He's a thriftier person than some I could name." "He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need, With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed? He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say, Like birds. They store a great many away. ”

“ Pressed into service means pressed out of shape. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My business is to find what people want: They pay for it, and so they ought to have it. Fairbanks, he says to me—he's editor— Feel out the public sentiment—he says. A good deal comes on me when all is said. The only trouble is we disagree In politics: I'm Vermont Democrat— You know what that is, sort of double-dyed; The News has always been Republican. Fairbanks, he says to me, 'Help us this year,' Meaning by us their ticket. ”

“ He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying He studied Latin like the violin Because he liked it—that an argument! ”

“ But all the fun's in how you say a thing." ”

“ He thought that I was after him for a feather— The white one in his tail; like one who takes Everything said as personal to himself. ”

“ Surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man Some humble way to save his self-respect. He added, if you really care to know, He meant to clear the upper pasture, too. That sounds like something you have heard before? Warren, I wish you could have heard the way He jumbled everything. I stopped to look Two or three times—he made me feel so queer— To see if he was talking in his sleep. He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember— The boy you had in haying four years since. He's finished school, and teaching in his college. Silas declares you'll have to get him back. ”

“ You can see what is troubling Granny, though. But don't you think we sometimes make too much Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals, And those will bear some keeping still about." "I can see we are going to be good friends." ”

“ She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see, Blind creature; and a while he didn't see. ”

“ He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his An excuse for keeping us other folk out." "I wonder you didn't see Loren about." "The best of it was that I did. Do you know, I was just getting through what the field had to show And over the wall and into the road, When who should come by, with a democrat-load Of all the young chattering Lorens alive, But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive." ”

“ He's got hay down that's been rained on three times. He hoed a little yesterday for me: I thought the growing things would do him good. Something went wrong. I saw him throw the hoe Sky-high with both hands. I can see it now— Come here—I'll show you—in that apple tree. That's no way for a man to do at his age: He's fifty-five, you know, if he's a day." "Aren't you afraid of him? What's that gun for?" "Oh, that's been there for hawks since chicken-time. John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his friends. I'll say that for him, John's no threatener Like some men folk. No one's afraid of him ”

“ Woodsville's a place of shrieks and wandering lamps And cars that shook and rattle—and one hotel. "You say 'unless.'" "Unless you wouldn't mind Sharing a room with someone else." "Who is it?" "A man." "So I should hope. What kind of man?" "I know him: he's all right. A man's a man. ”