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diff --git a/29345.txt b/29345.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c930947 --- /dev/null +++ b/29345.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2480 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mountain Interval, by Robert Frost + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mountain Interval + +Author: Robert Frost + +Release Date: July 7, 2009 [EBook #29345] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOUNTAIN INTERVAL *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Katherine Ward and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + [Illustration: ROBERT FROST + From the original in plaster by AROLDO DU CHENE + _Copyright, Henry Holt and Company_] + + + + + MOUNTAIN INTERVAL + + + BY + ROBERT FROST + + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + COPYRIGHT, 1916, 1921 + BY + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + _May, 1931_ + + PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY + THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY + RAHWAY, N. J. + + * * * * * + + + TO YOU + WHO LEAST NEED REMINDING + + that before this interval of the South Branch under black + mountains, there was another interval, the Upper at Plymouth, + where we walked in spring beyond the covered bridge; but that + the first interval of all was the old farm, our brook interval, + so called by the man we had it from in sale. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 9 + CHRISTMAS TREES 11 + AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT 14 + A PATCH OF OLD SNOW 15 + IN THE HOME STRETCH 16 + THE TELEPHONE 24 + MEETING AND PASSING 25 + HYLA BROOK 26 + THE OVEN BIRD 27 + BOND AND FREE 28 + BIRCHES 29 + PEA BRUSH 31 + PUTTING IN THE SEED 32 + A TIME TO TALK 33 + THE COW IN APPLE TIME 34 + AN ENCOUNTER 35 + RANGE-FINDING 36 + THE HILL WIFE 37 + I LONELINESS--HER WORD 37 + II HOUSE FEAR 37 + III THE SMILE--HER WORD 38 + IV THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM 38 + V THE IMPULSE 39 + THE BONFIRE 41 + A GIRL'S GARDEN 45 + THE EXPOSED NEST 48 + "OUT, OUT--" 50 + BROWN'S DESCENT OR THE WILLY-NILLY SLIDE 52 + THE GUM-GATHERER 56 + THE LINE-GANG 58 + THE VANISHING RED 59 + SNOW 61 + THE SOUND OF THE TREES 75 + + + + +_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 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._ + + + + +CHRISTMAS TREES + +(_A Christmas Circular Letter_) + + + The city had withdrawn into itself + And left at last the country to the country; + When between whirls of snow not come to lie + And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove + A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, + Yet did in country fashion in that there + He sat and waited till he drew us out + A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. + He proved to be the city come again + To look for something it had left behind + And could not do without and keep its Christmas. + He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; + My woods--the young fir balsams like a place + Where houses all are churches and have spires. + I hadn't thought of them as Christmas Trees. + I doubt if I was tempted for a moment + To sell them off their feet to go in cars + And leave the slope behind the house all bare, + Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. + I'd hate to have them know it if I was. + Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except + As others hold theirs or refuse for them, + Beyond the time of profitable growth, + The trial by market everything must come to. + I dallied so much with the thought of selling. + Then whether from mistaken courtesy + And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether + From hope of hearing good of what was mine, + I said, "There aren't enough to be worth while." + "I could soon tell how many they would cut, + You let me look them over." + + "You could look. + But don't expect I'm going to let you have them." + Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close + That lop each other of boughs, but not a few + Quite solitary and having equal boughs + All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to, + Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, + With a buyer's moderation, "That would do." + I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so. + We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over, + And came down on the north. + + He said, "A thousand." + + "A thousand Christmas trees!--at what apiece?" + + He felt some need of softening that to me: + "A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars." + + Then I was certain I had never meant + To let him have them. Never show surprise! + But thirty dollars seemed so small beside + The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents + (For that was all they figured out apiece), + Three cents so small beside the dollar friends + I should be writing to within the hour + Would pay in cities for good trees like those, + Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools + Could hang enough on to pick off enough. + A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had! + Worth three cents more to give away than sell, + As may be shown by a simple calculation. + Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter. + I can't help wishing I could send you one, + In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas. + + + + +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 fill a house, + A farm, a countryside, or if he can, + It's thus he does it of a winter night. + + + + +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. + + + + +IN THE HOME STRETCH + + + She stood against the kitchen sink, and looked + Over the sink out through a dusty window + At weeds the water from the sink made tall. + She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand. + Behind her was confusion in the room, + Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people + In other chairs, and something, come to look, + For every room a house has--parlor, bed-room, + And dining-room--thrown pell-mell in the kitchen. + And now and then a smudged, infernal face + Looked in a door behind her and addressed + Her back. She always answered without turning. + + "Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?" + "Put it on top of something that's on top + Of something else," she laughed. "Oh, put it where + You can to-night, and go. It's almost dark; + You must be getting started back to town." + Another blackened face thrust in and looked + And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke gently, + "What are you seeing out the window, _lady_?" + + "Never was I beladied so before. + Would evidence of having been called lady + More than so many times make me a lady + In common law, I wonder." + + "But I ask, + What are you seeing out the window, lady?" + + "What I'll be seeing more of in the years + To come as here I stand and go the round + Of many plates with towels many times." + + "And what is that? You only put me off." + + "Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan + More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe; + A little stretch of mowing-field for you; + Not much of that until I come to woods + That end all. And it's scarce enough to call + A view." + + "And yet you think you like it, dear?" + + "That's what you're so concerned to know! You hope + I like it. Bang goes something big away + Off there upstairs. The very tread of men + As great as those is shattering to the frame + Of such a little house. Once left alone, + You and I, dear, will go with softer steps + Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none + But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands + Will ever slam the doors." + + "I think you see + More than you like to own to out that window." + + "No; for besides the things I tell you of, + I only see the years. They come and go + In alternation with the weeds, the field, + The wood." + + "What kind of years?" + "Why, latter years-- + Different from early years." + "I see them, too. + You didn't count them?" + "No, the further off + So ran together that I didn't try to. + It can scarce be that they would be in number + We'd care to know, for we are not young now. + And bang goes something else away off there. + It sounds as if it were the men went down, + And every crash meant one less to return + To lighted city streets we, too, have known, + But now are giving up for country darkness." + + "Come from that window where you see too much for me, + And take a livelier view of things from here. + They're going. Watch this husky swarming up + Over the wheel into the sky-high seat, + Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose + At the flame burning downward as he sucks it." + + "See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof + How dark it's getting. Can you tell what time + It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon! + What shoulder did I see her over? Neither. + A wire she is of silver, as new as we + To everything. Her light won't last us long. + It's something, though, to know we're going to have her + Night after night and stronger every night + To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe, + The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window; + Ask them to help you get it on its feet. + We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!" + + "They're not gone yet." + + "We've got to have the stove, + Whatever else we want for. And a light. + Have we a piece of candle if the lamp + And oil are buried out of reach?" + Again + The house was full of tramping, and the dark, + Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove. + A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall, + To which they set it true by eye; and then + Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands, + So much too light and airy for their strength + It almost seemed to come ballooning up, + Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling. + "A fit!" said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder. + "It's good luck when you move in to begin + With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind, + It's not so bad in the country, settled down, + When people're getting on in life. You'll like it." + Joe said: "You big boys ought to find a farm, + And make good farmers, and leave other fellows + The city work to do. There's not enough + For everybody as it is in there." + "God!" one said wildly, and, when no one spoke: + "Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm." + But Jimmy only made his jaw recede + Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say + He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French boy + Who said with seriousness that made them laugh, + "Ma friend, you ain't know what it is you're ask." + He doffed his cap and held it with both hands + Across his chest to make as 'twere a bow: + "We're giving you our chances on de farm." + And then they all turned to with deafening boots + And put each other bodily out of the house. + "Goodby to them! We puzzle them. They think-- + I don't know what they think we see in what + They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems + The back some farm presents us; and your woods + To northward from your window at the sink, + Waiting to steal a step on us whenever + We drop our eyes or turn to other things, + As in the game 'Ten-step' the children play." + + "Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city. + All they could say was 'God!' when you proposed + Their coming out and making useful farmers." + + "Did they make something lonesome go through you? + It would take more than them to sicken you-- + Us of our bargain. But they left us so + As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with. + They almost shook _me_." + + "It's all so much + What we have always wanted, I confess + It's seeming bad for a moment makes it seem + Even worse still, and so on down, down, down. + It's nothing; it's their leaving us at dusk. + I never bore it well when people went. + The first night after guests have gone, the house + Seems haunted or exposed. I always take + A personal interest in the locking up + At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off." + He fetched a dingy lantern from behind + A door. "There's that we didn't lose! And these!"-- + Some matches he unpocketed. "For food-- + The meals we've had no one can take from us. + I wish that everything on earth were just + As certain as the meals we've had. I wish + The meals we haven't had were, anyway. + What have you you know where to lay your hands on?" + + "The bread we bought in passing at the store. + There's butter somewhere, too." + + "Let's rend the bread. + I'll light the fire for company for you; + You'll not have any other company + Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday + To look us over and give us his idea + Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up. + He'll know what he would do if he were we, + And all at once. He'll plan for us and plan + To help us, but he'll take it out in planning. + Well, you can set the table with the loaf. + Let's see you find your loaf. I'll light the fire. + I like chairs occupying other chairs + Not offering a lady--" + + "There again, Joe! + _You're tired._" + + "I'm drunk-nonsensical tired out; + Don't mind a word I say. It's a day's work + To empty one house of all household goods + And fill another with 'em fifteen miles away, + Although you do no more than dump them down." + + "Dumped down in paradise we are and happy." + + "It's all so much what I have always wanted, + I can't believe it's what you wanted, too." + + "Shouldn't you like to know?" + + "I'd like to know + If it is what you wanted, then how much + You wanted it for me." + + "A troubled conscience! + You don't want me to tell if _I_ don't know." + + "I don't want to find out what can't be known. + + But who first said the word to come?" + + "My dear, + It's who first thought the thought. You're searching, Joe, + For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. + Ends and beginnings--there are no such things. + There are only middles." + + "What is this?" + "This life? + Our sitting here by lantern-light together + Amid the wreckage of a former home? + You won't deny the lantern isn't new. + The stove is not, and you are not to me, + Nor I to you." + + "Perhaps you never were?" + + "It would take me forever to recite + All that's not new in where we find ourselves. + New is a word for fools in towns who think + Style upon style in dress and thought at last + Must get somewhere. I've heard you say as much. + No, this is no beginning." + + "Then an end?" + "End is a gloomy word." + + "Is it too late + To drag you out for just a good-night call + On the old peach trees on the knoll to grope + By starlight in the grass for a last peach + The neighbors may not have taken as their right + When the house wasn't lived in? I've been looking: + I doubt if they have left us many grapes. + Before we set ourselves to right the house, + The first thing in the morning, out we go + To go the round of apple, cherry, peach, + Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook. + All of a farm it is." + + "I know this much: + I'm going to put you in your bed, if first + I have to make you build it. Come, the light." + + When there was no more lantern in the kitchen, + The fire got out through crannies in the stove + And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling, + As much at home as if they'd always danced there. + + + + +THE TELEPHONE + + + "When I was just as far as I could walk + From here to-day, + There was an hour + All still + When leaning with my head against a flower + I heard you talk. + Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say-- + You spoke from that flower on the window sill-- + Do you remember what it was you said?" + + "First tell me what it was you thought you heard." + + "Having found the flower and driven a bee away, + I leaned my head, + And holding by the stalk, + I listened and I thought I caught the word-- + What was it? Did you call me by my name? + Or did you say-- + _Someone_ said 'Come'--I heard it as I bowed." + + "I may have thought as much, but not aloud." + + "Well, so I came." + + + + +MEETING AND PASSING + + + As I went down the hill along the wall + There was a gate I had leaned at for the view + And had just turned from when I first saw you + As you came up the hill. We met. But all + We did that day was mingle great and small + Footprints in summer dust as if we drew + The figure of our being less than two + But more than one as yet. Your parasol + + Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust. + And all the time we talked you seemed to see + Something down there to smile at in the dust. + (Oh, it was without prejudice to me!) + Afterward I went past what you had passed + Before we met and you what I had passed. + + + + +HYLA BROOK + + + By June our brook's run out of song and speed. + Sought for much after that, it will be found + Either to have gone groping underground + (And taken with it all the Hyla breed + That shouted in the mist a month ago, + Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)-- + Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, + Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent + Even against the way its waters went. + Its bed is left a faded paper sheet + Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat-- + A brook to none but who remember long. + This as it will be seen is other far + Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song. + We love the things we love for what they are. + + + + +THE OVEN BIRD + + + There is a singer everyone has heard, + Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, + Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. + He says that leaves are old and that for flowers + Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. + He says the early petal-fall is past + When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers + On sunny days a moment overcast; + And comes that other fall we name the fall. + He says the highway dust is over all. + The bird would cease and be as other birds + But that he knows in singing not to sing. + The question that he frames in all but words + Is what to make of a diminished thing. + + + + +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 turf, 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. + + + + +BIRCHES + + + When I see birches bend to left and right + Across the lines of straighter darker trees, + I like to think some boy's been swinging them. + But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. + Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them + Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning + After a rain. They click upon themselves + As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored + As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. + Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells + Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- + Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away + You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. + They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, + And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed + So low for long, they never right themselves: + You may see their trunks arching in the woods + Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground + Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair + Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. + But I was going to say when Truth broke in + With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm + (Now am I free to be poetical?) + I should prefer to have some boy bend them + As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- + Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, + Whose only play was what he found himself, + Summer or winter, and could play alone. + One by one he subdued his father's trees + By riding them down over and over again + Until he took the stiffness out of them, + And not one but hung limp, not one was left + For him to conquer. He learned all there was + To learn about not launching out too soon + And so not carrying the tree away + Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise + To the top branches, climbing carefully + With the same pains you use to fill a cup + Up to the brim, and even above the brim. + Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, + Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. + So was I once myself a swinger of birches. + And so I dream of going back to be. + It's when I'm weary of considerations, + And life is too much like a pathless wood + Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs + Broken across it, and one eye is weeping + From a twig's having lashed across it open. + I'd like to get away from earth awhile + And then come back to it and begin over. + May no fate willfully misunderstand me + And half grant what I wish and snatch me away + Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: + I don't know where it's likely to go better. + I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, + And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk + _Toward_ heaven, till the tree could bear no more, + But dipped its top and set me down again. + That would be good both going and coming back. + One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. + + + + +PEA BRUSH + + + I walked down alone Sunday after church + To the place where John has been cutting trees + To see for myself about the birch + He said I could have to bush my peas. + + The sun in the new-cut narrow gap + Was hot enough for the first of May, + And stifling hot with the odor of sap + From stumps still bleeding their life away. + + The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill + Wherever the ground was low and wet, + The minute they heard my step went still + To watch me and see what I came to get. + + Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!-- + All fresh and sound from the recent axe. + Time someone came with cart and pair + And got them off the wild flower's backs. + + They might be good for garden things + To curl a little finger round, + The same as you seize cat's-cradle strings, + And lift themselves up off the ground. + + Small good to anything growing wild, + They were crooking many a trillium + That had budded before the boughs were piled + And since it was coming up had to come. + + + + +PUTTING IN THE SEED + + + You come to fetch me from my work to-night + When supper's on the table, and we'll see + If I can leave off burying the white + Soft petals fallen from the apple tree. + (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, + Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) + And go along with you ere you lose sight + Of what you came for and become like me, + Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. + How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed + On through the watching for that early birth + When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, + + The sturdy seedling with arched body comes + Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs. + + + + +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. + + + + +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. + + + + +AN ENCOUNTER + + + Once on the kind of day called "weather breeder," + When the heat slowly hazes and the sun + By its own power seems to be undone, + I was half boring through, half climbing through + A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar + And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated, + And sorry I ever left the road I knew, + I paused and rested on a sort of hook + That had me by the coat as good as seated, + And since there was no other way to look, + Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue, + Stood over me a resurrected tree, + A tree that had been down and raised again-- + A barkless spectre. He had halted too, + As if for fear of treading upon me. + I saw the strange position of his hands-- + Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands + Of wire with something in it from men to men. + "You here?" I said. "Where aren't you nowadays + And what's the news you carry--if you know? + And tell me where you're off for--Montreal? + Me? I'm not off for anywhere at all. + Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways + Half looking for the orchid Calypso." + + + + +RANGE-FINDING + + + The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung + And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest + Before it stained a single human breast. + The stricken flower bent double and so hung. + And still the bird revisited her young. + A butterfly its fall had dispossessed + A moment sought in air his flower of rest, + Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung. + + On the bare upland pasture there had spread + O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread + And straining cables wet with silver dew. + A sudden passing bullet shook it dry. + The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly, + But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew. + + + + +THE HILL WIFE + + +LONELINESS + +(_Her Word_) + + One ought not to have to care + So much as you and I + Care when the birds come round the house + To seem to say good-bye; + + Or care so much when they come back + With whatever it is they sing; + The truth being we are as much + Too glad for the one thing + + As we are too sad for the other here-- + With birds that fill their breasts + But with each other and themselves + And their built or driven nests. + + +HOUSE FEAR + + 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. + + +THE SMILE + +(_Her Word_) + + I didn't like the way he went away. + That smile! It never came of being gay. + Still he smiled--did you see him?--I was sure! + Perhaps because we gave him only bread + And the wretch knew from that that we were poor. + Perhaps because he let us give instead + Of seizing from us as he might have seized. + Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed, + Or being very young (and he was pleased + To have a vision of us old and dead). + I wonder how far down the road he's got. + He's watching from the woods as like as not. + + +THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM + + She had no saying dark enough + For the dark pine that kept + Forever trying the window-latch + Of the room where they slept. + + The tireless but ineffectual hands + That with every futile pass + Made the great tree seem as a little bird + Before the mystery of glass! + + It never had been inside the room, + And only one of the two + Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream + Of what the tree might do. + + +THE IMPULSE + + It was too lonely for her there, + And too wild, + And since there were but two of them, + And no child, + + And work was little in the house, + She was free, + And followed where he furrowed field, + Or felled tree. + + She rested on a log and tossed + The fresh chips, + With a song only to herself + On her lips. + + And once she went to break a bough + Of black alder. + She strayed so far she scarcely heard + When he called her-- + + And didn't answer--didn't speak-- + Or return. + She stood, and then she ran and hid + In the fern. + + He never found her, though he looked + Everywhere, + And he asked at her mother's house + Was she there. + + Sudden and swift and light as that + The ties gave, + And he learned of finalities + Besides the grave. + + + + +THE BONFIRE + + + "Oh, let's go up the hill and scare ourselves, + As reckless as the best of them to-night, + By setting fire to all the brush we piled + With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow. + Oh, let's not wait for rain to make it safe. + The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough + Down dark converging paths between the pines. + Let's not care what we do with it to-night. + Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile + The way we piled it. And let's be the talk + Of people brought to windows by a light + Thrown from somewhere against their wall-paper. + Rouse them all, both the free and not so free + With saying what they'd like to do to us + For what they'd better wait till we have done. + Let's all but bring to life this old volcano, + If that is what the mountain ever was-- + And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will...." + + "And scare you too?" the children said together. + + "Why wouldn't it scare me to have a fire + Begin in smudge with ropy smoke and know + That still, if I repent, I may recall it, + But in a moment not: a little spurt + Of burning fatness, and then nothing but + The fire itself can put it out, and that + By burning out, and before it burns out + It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars, + And sweeping round it with a flaming sword, + Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle-- + Done so much and I know not how much more + I mean it shall not do if I can bind it. + Well if it doesn't with its draft bring on + A wind to blow in earnest from some quarter, + As once it did with me upon an April. + The breezes were so spent with winter blowing + They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them + Short of the perch their languid flight was toward; + And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven + As I walked once round it in possession. + But the wind out of doors--you know the saying. + There came a gust. You used to think the trees + Made wind by fanning since you never knew + It blow but that you saw the trees in motion. + Something or someone watching made that gust. + It put the flame tip-down and dabbed the grass + Of over-winter with the least tip-touch + Your tongue gives salt or sugar in your hand. + The place it reached to blackened instantly. + The black was all there was by day-light, + That and the merest curl of cigarette smoke-- + And a flame slender as the hepaticas, + Blood-root, and violets so soon to be now. + But the black spread like black death on the ground, + And I think the sky darkened with a cloud + Like winter and evening coming on together. + There were enough things to be thought of then. + Where the field stretches toward the north + And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it + To flames without twice thinking, where it verges + Upon the road, to flames too, though in fear + They might find fuel there, in withered brake, + Grass its full length, old silver golden-rod, + And alder and grape vine entanglement, + To leap the dusty deadline. For my own + I took what front there was beside. I knelt + And thrust hands in and held my face away. + Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating. + A board is the best weapon if you have it. + I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew, + And said out loud, I couldn't bide the smother + And heat so close in; but the thought of all + The woods and town on fire by me, and all + The town turned out to fight for me--that held me. + I trusted the brook barrier, but feared + The road would fail; and on that side the fire + Died not without a noise of crackling wood-- + Of something more than tinder-grass and weed-- + That brought me to my feet to hold it back + By leaning back myself, as if the reins + Were round my neck and I was at the plough. + I won! But I'm sure no one ever spread + Another color over a tenth the space + That I spread coal-black over in the time + It took me. Neighbors coming home from town + Couldn't believe that so much black had come there + While they had backs turned, that it hadn't been there + When they had passed an hour or so before + Going the other way and they not seen it. + They looked about for someone to have done it. + But there was no one. I was somewhere wondering + Where all my weariness had gone and why + I walked so light on air in heavy shoes + In spite of a scorched Fourth-of-July feeling. + Why wouldn't I be scared remembering that?" + + "If it scares you, what will it do to us?" + + "Scare you. But if you shrink from being scared, + What would you say to war if it should come? + That's what for reasons I should like to know-- + If you can comfort me by any answer." + + "Oh, but war's not for children--it's for men." + + "Now we are digging almost down to China. + My dears, my dears, you thought that--we all thought it. + So your mistake was ours. Haven't you heard, though, + About the ships where war has found them out + At sea, about the towns where war has come + Through opening clouds at night with droning speed + Further o'erhead than all but stars and angels,-- + And children in the ships and in the towns? + Haven't you heard what we have lived to learn? + Nothing so new--something we had forgotten: + _War is for everyone, for children too_. + I wasn't going to tell you and I mustn't. + The best way is to come up hill with me + And have our fire and laugh and be afraid." + + + + +A GIRL'S GARDEN + + + A neighbor of mine in the village + Likes to tell how one spring + When she was a girl on the farm, she did + A childlike thing. + + One day she asked her father + To give her a garden plot + To plant and tend and reap herself, + And he said, "Why not?" + + In casting about for a corner + He thought of an idle bit + Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood, + And he said, "Just it." + + And he said, "That ought to make you + An ideal one-girl farm, + And give you a chance to put some strength + On your slim-jim arm." + + It was not enough of a garden, + Her father said, to plough; + So she had to work it all by hand, + But she don't mind now. + + She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow + Along a stretch of road; + But she always ran away and left + Her not-nice load. + + And hid from anyone passing. + And then she begged the seed. + She says she thinks she planted one + Of all things but weed. + + A hill each of potatoes, + Radishes, lettuce, peas, + Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn, + And even fruit trees. + + And yes, she has long mistrusted + That a cider apple tree + In bearing there to-day is hers, + Or at least may be. + + Her crop was a miscellany + When all was said and done, + A little bit of everything, + A great deal of none. + + _Now_ when she sees in the village + How village things go, + Just when it seems to come in right, + She says, "_I_ know! + + It's as when I was a farmer----" + Oh, never by way of advice! + And she never sins by telling the tale + To the same person twice. + + + + +THE EXPOSED NEST + + + You were forever finding some new play. + So when I saw you down on hands and knees + In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay, + Trying, I thought, to set it up on end, + I went to show you how to make it stay, + If that was your idea, against the breeze, + And, if you asked me, even help pretend + To make it root again and grow afresh. + But 'twas no make-believe with you to-day, + Nor was the grass itself your real concern, + Though I found your hand full of wilted fern, + Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover. + 'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground + The cutter-bar had just gone champing over + (Miraculously without tasting flesh) + And left defenseless to the heat and light. + You wanted to restore them to their right + Of something interposed between their sight + And too much world at once--could means be found. + The way the nest-full every time we stirred + Stood up to us as to a mother-bird + Whose coming home has been too long deferred, + Made me ask would the mother-bird return + And care for them in such a change of scene + And might our meddling make her more afraid. + That was a thing we could not wait to learn. + We saw the risk we took in doing good, + But dared not spare to do the best we could + Though harm should come of it; so built the screen + You had begun, and gave them back their shade. + All this to prove we cared. Why is there then + No more to tell? We turned to other things. + I haven't any memory--have you?-- + Of ever coming to the place again + To see if the birds lived the first night through, + And so at last to learn to use their wings. + + + + +"OUT, OUT--" + + + The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard + And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, + Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. + And from there those that lifted eyes could count + Five mountain ranges one behind the other + Under the sunset far into Vermont. + And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, + As it ran light, or had to bear a load. + And nothing happened: day was all but done. + Call it a day, I wish they might have said + To please the boy by giving him the half hour + That a boy counts so much when saved from work. + His sister stood beside them in her apron + To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw, + As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, + Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap-- + He must have given the hand. However it was, + Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! + The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh, + As he swung toward them holding up the hand + Half in appeal, but half as if to keep + The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all-- + Since he was old enough to know, big boy + Doing a man's work, though a child at heart-- + He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off-- + The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" + So. But the hand was gone already. + The doctor put him in the dark of ether. + He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. + And then--the watcher at his pulse took fright. + No one believed. They listened at his heart. + Little--less--nothing!--and that ended it. + No more to build on there. And they, since they + Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs. + + + + +BROWN'S DESCENT + +OR + +THE WILLY-NILLY SLIDE + + + Brown lived at such a lofty farm + That everyone for miles could see + His lantern when he did his chores + In winter after half-past three. + + And many must have seen him make + His wild descent from there one night, + 'Cross lots, 'cross walls, 'cross everything, + Describing rings of lantern light. + + Between the house and barn the gale + Got him by something he had on + And blew him out on the icy crust + That cased the world, and he was gone! + + Walls were all buried, trees were few: + He saw no stay unless he stove + A hole in somewhere with his heel. + But though repeatedly he strove + + And stamped and said things to himself, + And sometimes something seemed to yield, + He gained no foothold, but pursued + His journey down from field to field. + + Sometimes he came with arms outspread + Like wings, revolving in the scene + Upon his longer axis, and + With no small dignity of mien. + + Faster or slower as he chanced, + Sitting or standing as he chose, + According as he feared to risk + His neck, or thought to spare his clothes, + + He never let the lantern drop. + And some exclaimed who saw afar + The figures he described with it, + "I wonder what those signals are + + Brown makes at such an hour of night! + He's celebrating something strange. + I wonder if he's sold his farm, + Or been made Master of the Grange." + + He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked; + He fell and made the lantern rattle + (But saved the light from going out.) + So half-way down he fought the battle + + Incredulous of his own bad luck. + And then becoming reconciled + To everything, he gave it up + And came down like a coasting child. + + "Well--I--be--" that was all he said, + As standing in the river road, + He looked back up the slippery slope + (Two miles it was) to his abode. + + Sometimes as an authority + On motor-cars, I'm asked if I + Should say our stock was petered out, + And this is my sincere reply: + + Yankees are what they always were. + Don't think Brown ever gave up hope + Of getting home again because + He couldn't climb that slippery slope; + + Or even thought of standing there + Until the January thaw + Should take the polish off the crust. + He bowed with grace to natural law, + + And then went round it on his feet, + After the manner of our stock; + Not much concerned for those to whom, + At that particular time o'clock, + + It must have looked as if the course + He steered was really straight away + From that which he was headed for-- + Not much concerned for them, I say; + + No more so than became a man-- + _And_ politician at odd seasons. + I've kept Brown standing in the cold + While I invested him with reasons; + + But now he snapped his eyes three times; + Then shook his lantern, saying, "Ile's + 'Bout out!" and took the long way home + By road, a matter of several miles. + + + + +THE GUM-GATHERER + + + There overtook me and drew me in + To his down-hill, early-morning stride, + And set me five miles on my road + Better than if he had had me ride, + A man with a swinging bag for load + And half the bag wound round his hand. + We talked like barking above the din + Of water we walked along beside. + And for my telling him where I'd been + And where I lived in mountain land + To be coming home the way I was, + He told me a little about himself. + He came from higher up in the pass + Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks + Is blocks split off the mountain mass-- + And hopeless grist enough it looks + Ever to grind to soil for grass. + (The way it is will do for moss.) + There he had built his stolen shack. + It had to be a stolen shack + Because of the fears of fire and loss + That trouble the sleep of lumber folk: + Visions of half the world burned black + And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke. + We know who when they come to town + Bring berries under the wagon seat, + Or a basket of eggs between their feet; + What this man brought in a cotton sack + Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce. + He showed me lumps of the scented stuff + Like uncut jewels, dull and rough. + It comes to market golden brown; + But turns to pink between the teeth. + + I told him this is a pleasant life + To set your breast to the bark of trees + That all your days are dim beneath, + And reaching up with a little knife, + To loose the resin and take it down + And bring it to market when you please. + + + + +THE LINE-GANG + + + Here come the line-gang pioneering by. + They throw a forest down less cut than broken. + They plant dead trees for living, and the dead + They string together with a living thread. + They string an instrument against the sky + Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken + Will run as hushed as when they were a thought. + But in no hush they string it: they go past + With shouts afar to pull the cable taut, + To hold it hard until they make it fast, + To ease away--they have it. With a laugh, + An oath of towns that set the wild at naught + They bring the telephone and telegraph. + + + + +THE VANISHING RED + + + He is said to have been the last Red Man + In Acton. And the Miller is said to have laughed-- + If you like to call such a sound a laugh. + But he gave no one else a laugher's license. + For he turned suddenly grave as if to say, + "Whose business,--if I take it on myself, + Whose business--but why talk round the barn?-- + When it's just that I hold with getting a thing done with." + You can't get back and see it as he saw it. + It's too long a story to go into now. + You'd have to have been there and lived it. + Then you wouldn't have looked on it as just a matter + Of who began it between the two races. + + Some guttural exclamation of surprise + The Red Man gave in poking about the mill + Over the great big thumping shuffling mill-stone + Disgusted the Miller physically as coming + From one who had no right to be heard from. + "Come, John," he said, "you want to see the wheel pit?" + + He took him down below a cramping rafter, + And showed him, through a manhole in the floor, + The water in desperate straits like frantic fish, + Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails. + Then he shut down the trap door with a ring in it + That jangled even above the general noise, + And came up stairs alone--and gave that laugh, + And said something to a man with a meal-sack + That the man with the meal-sack didn't catch--then. + Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel pit all right. + + + + +SNOW + + + The three stood listening to a fresh access + Of wind that caught against the house a moment, + Gulped snow, and then blew free again--the Coles + Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep, + Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore. + + Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward + Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying, + "You can just see it glancing off the roof + Making a great scroll upward toward the sky, + Long enough for recording all our names on.-- + I think I'll just call up my wife and tell her + I'm here--so far--and starting on again. + I'll call her softly so that if she's wise + And gone to sleep, she needn't wake to answer." + Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened. + "Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I'm at Cole's. I'm late. + I called you up to say Good-night from here + Before I went to say Good-morning there.-- + I thought I would.--I know, but, Lett--I know-- + I could, but what's the sense? The rest won't be + So bad.--Give me an hour for it.--Ho, ho, + Three hours to here! But that was all up hill; + The rest is down.--Why no, no, not a wallow: + They kept their heads and took their time to it + Like darlings, both of them. They're in the barn.-- + My dear, I'm coming just the same. I didn't + Call you to ask you to invite me home.--" + He lingered for some word she wouldn't say, + Said it at last himself, "Good-night," and then, + Getting no answer, closed the telephone. + The three stood in the lamplight round the table + With lowered eyes a moment till he said, + "I'll just see how the horses are." + + "Yes, do," + Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole + Added: "You can judge better after seeing.-- + I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here, + Brother Meserve. You know to find your way + Out through the shed." + + "I guess I know my way, + I guess I know where I can find my name + Carved in the shed to tell me who I am + If it don't tell me where I am. I used + To play--" + + "You tend your horses and come back. + Fred Cole, you're going to let him!" + + "Well, aren't you? + How can you help yourself?" + + "I called him Brother. + Why did I call him that?" + + "It's right enough. + That's all you ever heard him called round here. + He seems to have lost off his Christian name." + + "Christian enough I should call that myself. + He took no notice, did he? Well, at least + I didn't use it out of love of him, + The dear knows. I detest the thought of him + With his ten children under ten years old. + I hate his wretched little Racker Sect, + All's ever I heard of it, which isn't much. + But that's not saying--Look, Fred Cole, it's twelve, + Isn't it, now? He's been here half an hour. + He says he left the village store at nine. + Three hours to do four miles--a mile an hour + Or not much better. Why, it doesn't seem + As if a man could move that slow and move. + Try to think what he did with all that time. + And three miles more to go!" + + "Don't let him go. + Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you. + That sort of man talks straight on all his life + From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf + To anything anyone else may say. + I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you." + + "What is he doing out a night like this? + Why can't he stay at home?" + + "He had to preach." + + "It's no night to be out." + + "He may be small, + He may be good, but one thing's sure, he's tough." + + "And strong of stale tobacco." + + "He'll pull through." + + "You only say so. Not another house + Or shelter to put into from this place + To theirs. I'm going to call his wife again." + + "Wait and he may. Let's see what he will do. + Let's see if he will think of her again. + But then I doubt he's thinking of himself + He doesn't look on it as anything." + + "He shan't go--there!" + + "It _is_ a night, my dear." + + "One thing: he didn't drag God into it." + + "He don't consider it a case for God." + + "You think so, do you? You don't know the kind. + He's getting up a miracle this minute. + Privately--to himself, right now, he's thinking + He'll make a case of it if he succeeds, + But keep still if he fails." + + "Keep still all over. + He'll be dead--dead and buried." + + "Such a trouble! + Not but I've every reason not to care + What happens to him if it only takes + Some of the sanctimonious conceit + Out of one of those pious scalawags." + + "Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe." + + "You like the runt." + + "Don't you a little?" + + "Well, + I don't like what he's doing, which is what + You like, and like him for." + + "Oh, yes you do. + You like your fun as well as anyone; + Only you women have to put these airs on + To impress men. You've got us so ashamed + Of being men we can't look at a good fight + Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it. + Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.-- + He's here. I leave him all to you. Go in + And save his life.--All right, come in, Meserve. + Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?" + + "Fine, fine." + + "And ready for some more? My wife here + Says it won't do. You've got to give it up." + + "Won't you to please me? Please! If I say please? + Mr. Meserve, I'll leave it to _your_ wife. + What _did_ your wife say on the telephone?" + + Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp + Or something not far from it on the table. + By straightening out and lifting a forefinger, + He pointed with his hand from where it lay + Like a white crumpled spider on his knee: + "That leaf there in your open book! It moved + Just then, I thought. It's stood erect like that, + There on the table, ever since I came, + Trying to turn itself backward or forward, + I've had my eye on it to make out which; + If forward, then it's with a friend's impatience-- + You see I know--to get you on to things + It wants to see how you will take, if backward + It's from regret for something you have passed + And failed to see the good of. Never mind, + Things must expect to come in front of us + A many times--I don't say just how many-- + That varies with the things--before we see them. + One of the lies would make it out that nothing + Ever presents itself before us twice. + Where would we be at last if that were so? + Our very life depends on everything's + Recurring till we answer from within. + The thousandth time may prove the charm.--That leaf! + It can't turn either way. It needs the wind's help. + But the wind didn't move it if it moved. + It moved itself. The wind's at naught in here. + It couldn't stir so sensitively poised + A thing as that. It couldn't reach the lamp + To get a puff of black smoke from the flame, + Or blow a rumple in the collie's coat. + You make a little foursquare block of air, + Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all + The illimitable dark and cold and storm, + And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog, + And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose; + Though for all anyone can tell, repose + May be the thing you haven't, yet you give it. + So false it is that what we haven't we can't give; + So false, that what we always say is true. + I'll have to turn the leaf if no one else will. + It won't lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?" + + "I shouldn't want to hurry you, Meserve, + But if you're going--Say you'll stay, you know? + But let me raise this curtain on a scene, + And show you how it's piling up against you. + You see the snow-white through the white of frost? + Ask Helen how far up the sash it's climbed + Since last we read the gage." + + "It looks as if + Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat + And its eyes shut with overeagerness + To see what people found so interesting + In one another, and had gone to sleep + Of its own stupid lack of understanding, + Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff + Short off, and died against the window-pane." + + "Brother Meserve, take care, you'll scare yourself + More than you will us with such nightmare talk. + It's you it matters to, because it's you + Who have to go out into it alone." + + "Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he'll stay." + + "Before you drop the curtain--I'm reminded: + You recollect the boy who came out here + To breathe the air one winter--had a room + Down at the Averys'? Well, one sunny morning + After a downy storm, he passed our place + And found me banking up the house with snow. + And I was burrowing in deep for warmth, + Piling it well above the window-sills. + The snow against the window caught his eye. + 'Hey, that's a pretty thought'--those were his words. + 'So you can think it's six feet deep outside, + While you sit warm and read up balanced rations. + You can't get too much winter in the winter.' + Those were his words. And he went home and all + But banked the daylight out of Avery's windows. + Now you and I would go to no such length. + At the same time you can't deny it makes + It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three, + Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run + So high across the pane outside. There where + There is a sort of tunnel in the frost + More like a tunnel than a hole--way down + At the far end of it you see a stir + And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift + Blown in the wind. I _like_ that--I like _that_. + Well, now I leave you, people." + + "Come, Meserve, + We thought you were deciding not to go-- + The ways you found to say the praise of comfort + And being where you are. You want to stay." + + "I'll own it's cold for such a fall of snow. + This house is frozen brittle, all except + This room you sit in. If you think the wind + Sounds further off, it's not because it's dying; + You're further under in the snow--that's all-- + And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust + It bursts against us at the chimney mouth, + And at the eaves. I like it from inside + More than I shall out in it. But the horses + Are rested and it's time to say good-night, + And let you get to bed again. Good-night, + Sorry I had to break in on your sleep." + + "Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you + You had us for a half-way station + To stop at. If you were the kind of man + Paid heed to women, you'd take my advice + And for your family's sake stay where you are. + But what good is my saying it over and over? + You've done more than you had a right to think + You could do--_now_. You know the risk you take + In going on." + + "Our snow-storms as a rule + Aren't looked on as man-killers, and although + I'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep + Under it all, his door sealed up and lost, + Than the man fighting it to keep above it, + Yet think of the small birds at roost and not + In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? + Their bulk in water would be frozen rock + In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow + They will come budding boughs from tree to tree + Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee, + As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm." + + "But why when no one wants you to go on? + Your wife--she doesn't want you to. We don't, + And you yourself don't want to. Who else is there?" + + "Save us from being cornered by a woman. + Well, there's"--She told Fred afterward that in + The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word + Was coming, "God." But no, he only said + "Well, there's--the storm. That says I must go on. + That wants me as a war might if it came. + Ask any man." + + He threw her that as something + To last her till he got outside the door. + He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off. + When Cole returned he found his wife still standing + Beside the table near the open book, + Not reading it. + + "Well, what kind of a man + Do you call that?" she said. + + "He had the gift + Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?" + + "Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?" + + "Or disregarding people's civil questions-- + What? We've found out in one hour more about him + Than we had seeing him pass by in the road + A thousand times. If that's the way he preaches! + You didn't think you'd keep him after all. + Oh, I'm not blaming you. He didn't leave you + Much say in the matter, and I'm just as glad + We're not in for a night of him. No sleep + If he had stayed. The least thing set him going. + It's quiet as an empty church without him." + + "But how much better off are we as it is? + We'll have to sit here till we know he's safe." + + "Yes, I suppose you'll want to, but I shouldn't. + He knows what he can do, or he wouldn't try. + Get into bed I say, and get some rest. + He won't come back, and if he telephones, + It won't be for an hour or two." + + "Well then. + We can't be any help by sitting here + And living his fight through with him, I suppose." + + * * * * * + + Cole had been telephoning in the dark. + Mrs. Cole's voice came from an inner room: + "Did she call you or you call her?" + + "She me. + You'd better dress: you won't go back to bed. + We must have been asleep: it's three and after." + + "Had she been ringing long? I'll get my wrapper. + I want to speak to her." + + "All she said was, + He hadn't come and had he really started." + + "She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago." + + "He had the shovel. He'll have made a fight." + + "Why did I ever let him leave this house!" + + "Don't begin that. You did the best you could + To keep him--though perhaps you didn't quite + Conceal a wish to see him show the spunk + To disobey you. Much his wife'll thank you." + + "Fred, after all I said! You shan't make out + That it was any way but what it was. + Did she let on by any word she said + She didn't thank me?" + + "When I told her 'Gone,' + 'Well then,' she said, and 'Well then'--like a threat. + And then her voice came scraping slow: 'Oh, you, + Why did you let him go'?" + + "Asked why we let him? + You let me there. I'll ask her why she let him. + She didn't dare to speak when he was here. + Their number's--twenty-one? The thing won't work. + Someone's receiver's down. The handle stumbles. + The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm! + It's theirs. She's dropped it from her hand and gone." + + "Try speaking. Say 'Hello'!" + + "Hello. Hello." + + "What do you hear?" + + "I hear an empty room-- + You know--it sounds that way. And yes, I hear-- + I think I hear a clock--and windows rattling. + No step though. If she's there she's sitting down." + + "Shout, she may hear you." + + "Shouting is no good." + + "Keep speaking then." + + "Hello. Hello. Hello. + You don't suppose--? She wouldn't go out doors?" + + "I'm half afraid that's just what she might do." + + "And leave the children?" + + "Wait and call again. + You can't hear whether she has left the door + Wide open and the wind's blown out the lamp + And the fire's died and the room's dark and cold?" + + "One of two things, either she's gone to bed + Or gone out doors." + + "In which case both are lost. + Do you know what she's like? Have you ever met her? + It's strange she doesn't want to speak to us." + + "Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come." + + "A clock maybe." + + "Don't you hear something else?" + + "Not talking." + + "No." + + "Why, yes, I hear--what is it?" + + "What do you say it is?" + + "A baby's crying! + Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off." + + "Its mother wouldn't let it cry like that, + Not if she's there." + + "What do you make of it?" + + "There's only one thing possible to make, + That is, assuming--that she has gone out. + Of course she hasn't though." They both sat down + Helpless. "There's nothing we can do till morning." + + "Fred, I shan't let you think of going out." + + "Hold on." The double bell began to chirp. + They started up. Fred took the telephone. + "Hello, Meserve. You're there, then!--And your wife? + Good! Why I asked--she didn't seem to answer. + He says she went to let him in the barn.-- + We're glad. Oh, say no more about it, man. + Drop in and see us when you're passing." + + "Well, + She has him then, though what she wants him for + I _don't_ see." + + "Possibly not for herself. + Maybe she only wants him for the children." + + "The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing. + What spoiled our night was to him just his fun. + What did he come in for?--To talk and visit? + Thought he'd just call to tell us it was snowing. + If he thinks he is going to make our house + A halfway coffee house 'twixt town and nowhere----" + + "I thought you'd feel you'd been too much concerned." + + "You think you haven't been concerned yourself." + + "If you mean he was inconsiderate + To rout us out to think for him at midnight + And then take our advice no more than nothing, + Why, I agree with you. But let's forgive him. + We've had a share in one night of his life. + What'll you bet he ever calls again?" + + + + +_THE SOUND OF THE TREES_ + + + _I wonder about the trees. + Why do we wish to bear + Forever the noise of these + More than another noise + So close to our dwelling place? + We suffer them by the day + Till we lose all measure of pace, + And fixity in our joys, + And acquire a listening air. + They are that that talks of going + But never gets away; + And that talks no less for knowing, + As it grows wiser and older, + That now it means to stay. + My feet tug at the floor + And my head sways to my shoulder + Sometimes when I watch trees sway, + From the window or the door. + I shall set forth for somewhere, + I shall make the reckless choice + Some day when they are in voice + And tossing so as to scare + The white clouds over them on. + I shall have less to say, + But I shall be gone._ + + * * * * * + + + + +SOME RECENT POETRY + + Stephen Vincent Benet's + Heavens and Earth + + Thomas Burke's + The Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse + + Richard Burton's + Poems of Earth's Meaning + + Francis Carlin's + My Ireland + The Cairn of Stars + + Padraic Colum's + Wild Earth and Other Poems + + Grace Hazard Conkling's + Wilderness Songs + + Walter De La Mare's + The Listeners and Other Poems + Peacock Pie. Ill'd by W. H. Robinson + Motley and Other Poems + Collected Poems 1901-1918. 2 Vols. + + Robert Frost's + North of Boston + Mountain Interval. New Edition, with Portrait + A Boy's Will + + Carl Sandburg's + Cornhuskers + Chicago Poems + + Lew Sarrett's + Many Many Moons + + Louis Untermeyer's + These Times + ---- and Other Poets + Poems of Heinrich Heine (Translated) + The New Era in American Poetry + + Margaret Widdemer's + The Old Road to Paradise + Factories and Other Poems + + * * * * * + +THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE + + American and English 1580-1918 + Selected and arranged by Burton Egbert Stevenson + Third Edition Revised and Enlarged + +Over 4,000 pages of the best verse in English, ranging all the way +from the classics to some of the best newspaper verse of to-day. In +several different editions. + + * * * * * + + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber Notes + +Typographical inconsistencies have been changed and are listed below. + +Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved. + +Author's punctuation style is preserved, except where noted. + +Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_. + +Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=. + + +Transcriber Changes + +The following changes were made to the original text: + + Page 46: Added period after =trees= (Tomatoes, beets, + beans, pumpkins, corn, And even fruit =trees.=) + + Page 63: Added stanza break between go and Don't (And + three miles more to =go!" "Don't= let him go.) + + Page 63: Single quote changed to double after =through= + ("He'll pull =through."=) + + Page 72: Removed extra stanza break after =stumbles= + (The handle =stumbles. The= stubborn thing, the way it + jars your arm!) + + Page 74: Removed extra stanza break after =wife= + ("Hello, Meserve. You're there, then!--And your =wife? + Good!= Why I asked--she didn't seem to answer.) + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mountain Interval, by Robert Frost + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOUNTAIN INTERVAL *** + +***** This file should be named 29345.txt or 29345.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/3/4/29345/ + +Produced by David Starner, Katherine Ward and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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