Robert Frost

Robert Frost 1941 (Photo by Fred Palumbo, courtesy of Library of Congress)

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Robert Frost was one of the most famous American poets of the twentieth century. His poems were often set in rural New England, and used everyday scenes and the speech patterns of ordinary people to explore the meaning of life. The following are short poems from Frost’s 1916 book Mountain Interval, which includes his most famous poem “The Road Not Taken”.

                                                

Photo Courtesy of splitshire.com

                                                  

                                       The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it was bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Phot by hostsh, courtesy of pixabay.com

                                       A Patch of Old Snow

There’s a patch of old snow in a corner

     That I should have guessed

Was a blow-away paper the rain

     Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if

     Small print overspread it,

The news of a day I’ve forgotten—

     If I ever read it.

Miners Wives, Capels, WV 1938 (Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, Courtesy of Library of Congress)

                                    

                   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.

 

Photo by Brucey (Courtesy of pixabay.com)

                                   

House Fear

(Excerpt from The Hill Wife)

Always—I tell you this they learned—

Always at night when they returned

To the lonely house from far away

To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,

They learned to rattle the lock and key

To give whatever might chance to be

Warning and time to be off in flight :

And preferring the out- to the in-door night,

They learned to leave the house-door wide

Until they had lit the lamp inside.