Poems

This page exhibits examples of poems written by Robert Frost**.** Many of these poems share a common theme of nature, which frequently occurs in Frost's poetry.

By Robert Frost The firm house lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
 * A Brook in the City**

And impulse, having dipped a finger length And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed A flower to try its currents where they crossed. The meadow grass could be cemented down From growing under pavements of a town; The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame. Is water wood to serve a brook the same? How else dispose of an immortal force No longer needed? Staunch it at its source With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone In fetid darkness still to live and run - And all for nothing it had ever done Except forget to go in fear perhaps. No one would know except for ancient maps That such a brook ran water. But I wonder If from its being kept forever under The thoughts may not have risen that so keep This new-built city from both work and sleep.

**Once by the Pacific** By Robert Frost

Great waves looked over others coming in, And thought of doing something to the shore That water never did to land before. The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. You could not tell, and yet it looked as if The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, The cliff in being backed by continent; It looked as if a night of dark intent Was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage. There would be more than ocean-water broken Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

by Robert Frost
 * A Peck of Gold**

Dust always blowing about the town, Except when sea-fog laid it down, And I was one of the children told Some of the blowing dust was gold. All the dust the wind blew high Appeared like gold in the sunset sky, But I was one of the children told Some of the dust was really gold.

Such was life in the Golden Gate: Gold dusted all we drank and ate, And I was one of the children told, 'We all must eat our peck of gold'.

By Robert Frost
 * Storm Fear**

When the wind works against us in the dark, And pelts with snow The lowest chamber window on the east, And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, The beast, 'Come out! Come out!'-- It costs no inward struggle not to go, Ah, no! I count our strength, Two and a child, Those of us not asleep subdued to mark How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,-- How drifts are piled, Dooryard and road ungraded, Till even the comforting barn grows far away And my heart owns a doubt Whether 'tis in us to arise with day And save ourselves unaided.

by Robert Frost
 * Mowing**

There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound- And that was why it whispered and did not speak. It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows. My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

By Robert Frost
 * Stars**

How countlessly they congregate O'er our tumultuous snow, Which flows in shapes as tall as trees When wintry winds do blow!-- Our faltering few steps on As if with keenness for our fate, To white rest, and a place of rest Invisible at dawn,-- And yet with neither love nor hate, Those stars like some snow-white Minerva's snow-white marble eyes Without the gift of sight.

By Robert Frost
 * A Late Walk**

When I got up through the mowing field, The headless aftermath, Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew, Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground, The whir of sober birds Up from the tangle of withered weeds Is sadder than any words.

A tree beside the wall stands bare, But a leaf that lingered brown, Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought, Comes softly rattling down. I end not far from my going forth, By picking the faded blue Of the last remaining aster flower To carry again to you.

By Robert Frost
 * Dust of Snow**

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

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.
 * Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening**

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 the 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. []

by Robert Frost
 * 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.

By Robert Frost
 * The Lockless Door**

It went many years, But at last came a knock, And I thought of the door With no lock to lock.

I blew out the light, I tip-toed the floor, And raised both hands In prayer to the door.

But the knock came again My window was wide; I climbed on the sill And descended outside.

Back over the sill I bade a "Come in" To whoever the knock At the door may have been.

So at a knock I emptied my cage To hide in the world And alter with age.

By Robert Frost 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.'
 * The Runaway**

By Robert Frost
 * Waiting**

//Afield at dusk//

What things for dream there are when specter-like, Moving amond tall haycocks lightly piled, I enter alone upon the stubbled filed, From which the laborers' voices late have died, And in the antiphony of afterglow And rising full moon, sit me down Upon the full moon's side of the first haycock And lose myself amid so many alike.

I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour, Preventing shadow until the moon prevail; I dream upon the nighthawks peopling heaven, Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar; And on the bat's mute antics, who would seem Dimly to have made out my secret place, Only to lose it when he pirouettes, On the last swallow's sweep; and on the rasp In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back, That, silenced by my advent, finds once more, After an interval, his instrument, And tries once--twice--and thrice if I be there; And on the worn book of old-golden song I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold And freshen in this air of withering sweetness; But on the memor of one absent, most, For whom these lines when they shall greet her eye.

By Robert Frost
 * To Earthward**

Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things, The flow of- was it musk From hidden grapevine springs Down hill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache From sprays of honeysuckle That when they're gathered shake Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those Seemed strong when I was young; The petal of the rose It was that stung. Now no joy but lacks salt That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred I take away my hand From leaning on it hard In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough: I long for weight and strength To feel the earth as rough To all my length.

by Robert Frost These pools that, though in forests, still reflect The total sky almost without defect, And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver, Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone, And yet not out by any brook or river, But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
 * Spring Pools**

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods -- Let them think twice before they use their powers To blot out and drink up and sweep away These flowery waters and these watery flowers From snow that melted only yesterday.

by Robert Frost
 * Into My Own**

One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land, Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew-- Only more sure of all I thought was true.

by Robert Frost
 * Bond and Free**

Love has earth to which she clings With hills and circling arms about-- Wall within wall to shut fear out. But Thought has need of no such things, For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turn, I see Where Love has left a printed trace With straining in the world's embrace. And such is Love and glad to be But Thought has shaken his ankles free. Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom And sits in Sirius' disc all night, Till day makes him retrace his flight With smell of burning on every plume, Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are. Yet some say Love by being thrall And simply staying possesses all In several beauty that Thought fares far To find fused in another star.

By Robert Frost Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended.
 * Reluctance**

The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch-hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

By Robert Forst
 * Come In**

As I came to the edge of the woods, Thrush music -- hark! Now if it was dusk outside, Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird By sleight of wing To better its perch for the night, Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun That had died in the west Still lived for one song more In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went -- Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars; I would not come in. I meant not even if asked; And I hadn't been.




 * 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 I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say thay for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.