(Mountain Interval) A Girl’s Garden

Robert Frost

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.

(Mountain Interval) The Bonfire

Robert Frost

“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.”

(Mountain Interval) The Hill Wife

Robert Frost

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.

(Mountain Interval) Range-finding

Robert Frost

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.

(Mountain Interval) An Encounter

Robert Frost

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."

(Mountain Interval) The Cow in Apple Time

Robert Frost

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.

(Mountain Interval) A Time to Talk

Robert Frost

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.

(Mountain Interval) Putting in the Seed

Robert Frost

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.

(Mountain Interval) Pea Brush

Robert Frost

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.

(Mountain Interval) Birches

Robert Frost

When I see birches bend left to right
Across the line 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 so 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
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.