The Crypt/Selected Poetry

       Selected  
        Poetry

      Written By
   
    Robert Frost 

1. - I 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 shan't be gone long.—You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf That's standing by the mother. It's so young,

1. - It totters when she

licks it with her tongue. I shan't be gone long.—You come too.

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

1. - 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.

1. - She bellows on a knoll

against the sky. Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.

THE RUNAWAY 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

1. - 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

1. - 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

1. - 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."

II AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT All out of doors looked darkly in at him

1. - 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

1. - 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.

1. - 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

1. - 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 keep a house, A farm, a countryside, or if he can, It's thus he does it of a winter night.

1. -

HOME BURIAL He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her:

1. - "What is it you see

From up there always—for I want to know." She turned and sank upon her skirts at that, And her face changed from terrified to dull. He said to gain time: "What is it you see?" Mounting until she cowered under him. "I will find out now—you must tell me, dear."

1. - whole of it. Not so

much larger than a bedroom, is it? There are three stones of slate and one of marble, Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight On the sidehill. We haven't to mind those. But I understand: it is not the stones, But the child's mound——"

1. -

"Don't, don't, don't, don't," she cried.

She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs; And turned on him with such a daunting look, He said twice over before he knew himself: "Can't a man

1. - speak of his own child

he's lost?"

"Not you! Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't need it! I must get out of here. I must get air. I don't know rightly whether any man can."

"Amy! Don't go to someone else this time. Listen to me. I won't

1. - come down the stairs."

He sat and fixed his chin between his fists. "There's something I should like to ask you, dear."

"You don't know how to ask it."

"Help me, then."

Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.

1. -

"My words are nearly always an offence. I don't know how to speak of anything So as to please you. But I might be taught I should suppose. I can't say I see how. A man must partly give up being a man With women-folk. We could have some arrangement By which

1. - 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

1. - 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. I do think, though, you overdo it a little. What was it brought you up to think it the thing To take your mother-loss

1. - of a first child So

inconsolably—in the face of love. You'd think his memory might be satisfied——"

"There you go sneering now!"

"I'm not, I'm not! You make me angry. I'll come down to you. God, what a woman! And it's come to this, A man

1. - can't speak of his own

child that's dead." "You can't because you don't know how. If you had any feelings, you that dug With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave; I saw you from that very window there, Making the gravel leap and leap in air, Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly

1. - And roll back down

the mound beside the hole. I thought, Who is that man? I didn't know you. And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs To look again, and still your spade kept lifting. Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why, But I went near to see with

1. - my own eyes. You

could sit there with the stains on your shoes Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave And talk about your everyday concerns. You had stood the spade up against the wall Outside there in the entry, for I saw it."

"I shall laugh the

1. - worst laugh I ever

laughed. I'm cursed. God, if I don't believe I'm cursed." "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!

1. - 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

1. - dies more alone.

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 won't have grief so If I can change it. Oh, I won't, I

1. - won't!"

"There, you have said it all and you feel better. You won't go now. You're crying. Close the door. The heart's gone out of it: why keep it up? Amy! There's someone coming down the road!"

"You—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—

1. - musing on the

lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage To meet him in the doorway with the news And put him on his guard. "Silas is back."

She pushed him outward with her

1. - through the door And

shut it after her. "Be kind," she said. She took the market things from Warren's arms And set them on the porch, then drew him down To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

"When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I'll not have the fellow back," he

1. - said. "I told him so last

haying, didn't I? 'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.' What good is he? Who else will harbour him At his age for the little he can do? What help he is there's no depending on. Off he goes always when I need him most.

'He thinks he ought to

1. - earn a little pay,

Enough at least to buy tobacco with, So he won't have to beg and be beholden.' 'All right,' I say, 'I can't afford to pay Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.' 'Someone else can.' 'Then someone else will have to.' I shouldn't mind his bettering himself If that was what it was.

1. - You can be certain,

When he begins like that, there's someone at him Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,— In haying time, when any help is scarce. In winter he comes back to us. I'm done."

"Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," Mary said.

1. - "I want him to: he'll

have to soon or late."

"He's worn out. He's asleep beside the stove. When I came up from Rowe's I found him here, Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, A miserable sight, and frightening, too— You needn't smile—I didn't recognise him— I

1. - wasn't looking for

him—and he's changed. Wait till you see."

"Where did you say he'd been?"

"He didn't say. I dragged him to the house, And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke. I tried to make him talk about his travels. Nothing would

1. - do: he just kept

nodding off."

"What did he say? Did he say anything?"

"But little."

"Anything? Mary, confess He said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me."

"Warren!"

1. -

"But did he? I just want to know."

"Of course he did. What would you have him say? 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

1. - 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

1. - 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. He says they two will make a team for work: Between them they will lay this farm as smooth! The way he mixed that in with other things. He thinks

1. - young Wilson a likely

lad, though daft On education—you know how they fought All through July under the blazing sun, Silas up on the cart to build the load, Harold along beside to pitch it on."

"Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot."

1. -

"Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream. You wouldn't think they would. How some things linger! Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him. After so many years he still keeps finding Good arguments he sees he might have used. I sympathise. I

1. - know just how it feels

To think of the right thing to say too late. Harold's associated in his mind with Latin. He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying He studied Latin like the violin Because he liked it—that an argument! He said he couldn't make the boy believe He could find water

1. - 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

1. - 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. Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk, And nothing to look backward to with pride, And nothing to look forward to with

1. - hope, So now and

never any different."

Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,

1. - Taut with the dew from

garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard the tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night. "Warren," she said, "he has come home to die: You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."

"Home," he mocked

1. - gently.

"Yes, what else but home?

It all depends on what you mean by home. Of course he's nothing to us, any more Than was the hound that came a stranger to us Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."

1. - "Home is the place

where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in."

"I should have called it Something you somehow haven't to deserve."

Warren leaned out and took a step or two, Picked up a little stick, and brought it

1. - back And broke it in

his hand and tossed it by. "Silas has better claim on us, you think, Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles As the road winds would bring him to his door. Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day. Why didn't he go there? His brother's rich, A somebody—director in

1. - the bank."

"He never told us that."

"We know it though."

"I think his brother ought to help, of course. I'll see to that if there is need. He ought of right To take him in, and might be willing to— He may be

1. - better than

appearances. But have some pity on Silas. Do you think If he'd had any pride in claiming kin Or anything he looked for from his brother, He'd keep so still about him all this time?"

"I wonder what's between them."

1. -

"I can tell you. 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."

1. -

"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. You must go in and see what you can do. I

1. - made the bed up for

him there to-night. You'll be surprised at him—how much he's broken. His working days are done; I'm sure of it."

"I'd not be in a hurry to say that."

"I haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself. But, Warren,

1. - please remember how

it is: He's come to help you ditch the meadow. He has a plan. You mustn't laugh at him. He may not speak of it, and then he may. I'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud Will hit or miss the moon."

It hit the moon. Then there were three there, making a dim

1. - answered.