Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost (26 March 1874 – 29 January 1963) was an American poet; winner of four Pulitzer Prizes.

1910s



 * The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
 * Mowing (1913)

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
 * There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
 * "Mowing" (1913)

Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. '''They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true.'''
 * I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
 * "Into My Own", st. 4 (1913)

Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?'''
 * '''Ah, when to the heart of man
 * "Reluctance", st. 4 (1913)

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha'n't be gone long. — You come too.
 * I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
 * "The Pasture", st. 1 (1914)

And nothing to look forward to with hope.'''
 * '''And nothing to look backward to with pride,
 * "The Death of the Hired Man" (1914)

They have to take you in.'''
 * '''Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
 * "The Death of the Hired Man" (1914)

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 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.
 * The nearest friends can go
 * "Home Burial" (1914)

Is due to truths being in and out of favor.'''
 * '''Most of the change we think we see in life
 * "The Black Cottage" (1914)


 * The best way out is always through.
 * "A Servant to Servants" (1914)


 * Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.
 * "The Self-seeker" (1914)

Toward heaven still. And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now.
 * My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
 * "After Apple Picking" (1914)

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep.
 * Were he not gone,
 * "After Apple Picking'' (1914)

Put on me, but there seems no other way. Len says one steady pull more ought to do it. He says the best way out is always through. And I agree to that, or in so far As that I can see no way out but through — Leastways for me — and then they’ll be convinced.
 * By good rights I ought not to have so much
 * A Servant To Servants (1914)

To the dark house after so long an absence, And the key rattled loudly into place Seemed to warn someone to be getting out At one door as we entered at another.
 * I always have felt strange when we came home
 * "The Fear" (1914)

With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
 * To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
 * "The Wood-Pile" (1914)

“Whether they work together or apart.”
 * “Men work together,” I told him from the heart,
 * The Tuft of Flowers (1915)


 * Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.
 * Letter to Louis Untermeyer (8 July 1915)


 * A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.
 * Letter to Louis Untermeyer (1 January 1916)

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.'''
 * '''I shall be telling this with a sigh
 * "The Road Not Taken", st. 4 (1916)

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
 * The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
 * "Out, Out —" (1916)

The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already.
 * "Don't let him cut my hand off&mdash;
 * "Out, Out —" (1916)

When all was said and done, A little bit of everything, A great deal of none.
 * Her crop was a miscellany
 * "A Girl's Garden'' (1916)

And said to be good, And wear her red hood, And look for skunk tracks In the snow with an ax — And do everything!
 * But he sent her Good-by,
 * "The Last Word of a Blue Bird'' (1916)

To make no more of a wall than an open gate, And think no more of wall-builders than fools.
 * Something inspires the only cow of late
 * "The Cow in Apple-Time" (1916)

Mending Wall (1914)
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
 * Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
 * My apple trees will never get across

What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.'''
 * '''Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.''' He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
 * '''He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Home Burial (1914)
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: "What is it you see From up there always?—for I want to know."
 * '''He saw her from the bottom of the stairs

Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see. But at last he murmured, "Oh," and again, "Oh."
 * She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,

So small the window frames the whole of it.
 * The little graveyard where my people are!

"Can't a man 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."
 * He said twice over before he knew himself:

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.
 * 'My words are nearly always an offense.

With womenfolk.''' We could have some arrangement By which 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 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.'''
 * '''A man must partly give up being a man

"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! What had how long it takes a birch to rot To do with what was in the darkened parlor? 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.
 * 'I can repeat the very words you were saying:

My November Guest (1915)

 * The third poem from the 1915 republished

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane.'''
 * '''My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted gray Is silver now with clinging mist.
 * Her pleasure will not let me stay.

The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why.'''
 * '''The desolate, deserted trees,

The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise.'''
 * '''Not yesterday I learned to know

The Oven Bird (1916)

 * Full text online

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.'''
 * There is a singer everyone has heard,

1920s
That shouted in the mist a month ago, Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow.
 * The Hyla breed
 * "Hyla Brook" (1920)


 * We love the things we love for what they are.
 * "Hyla Brook" (1920)

But I have promises to keep''', And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
 * '''The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
 * "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1923)

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.'''
 * “My dear,
 * Mountain Interval (1920), 5. In the Home Stretch, Line 187-192

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 get away from earth awhile
 * "Birches" (1920)

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.
 * I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
 * "Birches" (1920)

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.
 * I shall set forth for somewhere,
 * "The Sound of the Trees" (1920)

For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.'''
 * '''If one by one we counted people out
 * The Star-Splitter (1923)

Do we know any better where we are, And how it stands between the night tonight And a man with a smoky lantern chimney? How different from the way it ever stood?'''
 * '''We've looked and looked, but after all where are we?
 * The Star-Splitter (1923)

Considering the market, there are more Poems produced than any other thing? No wonder poets sometimes have to seem So much more businesslike than businessmen. Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.
 * Do you know,
 * "New Hampshire" (1923)

New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.'''
 * '''The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;
 * "New Hampshire" (1923)

Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.'''
 * '''Nature's first green is gold,
 * "Nothing Gold Can Stay" (1923)


 * The snake stood up for evil in the Garden.
 * "The Ax-Helve" (1923)

In here and there a bird, or butterfly, Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue.
 * Why make so much of fragmentary blue
 * "Fragmentary Blue", st. 1 (1923)

Some say in ice.''' From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
 * '''Some say the world will end in fire,
 * "Fire and Ice" (1923)

Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.
 * The way a crow
 * "Dust of Snow" (1923)

We heard the miniature thunder where he fled, And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray, Like a shadow across instead of behind the flakes.
 * And then we saw him bolt.
 * "The Runaway" (1923)

As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air
 * Love at the lips was touch
 * "To Earthward", st. 1 (1923)

That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.
 * Now no joy but lacks salt,
 * "To Earthward" (1923), st. 5,6

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below. I have to be gone for a season or so.
 * How often already you've had to be told,
 * "Goodbye and Keep Cold" (1923)

At broken windows flew out and in, Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh From too much dwelling on what has been.
 * The birds that came to it through the air
 * "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things" (1923)


 * I own any form of humor shows fear and inferiority. Irony is simply a kind of guardedness. So is a twinkle. It keeps the reader from criticism. Whittier, when he shows any style at all is probably a greater person than Longfellow as he is lifted priestlike above consideration of the scornful. Belief is better than anything else, and it is best when rapt, above paying its respects to anybody's doubt whatsoever. At bottom the world isn't a joke. We only joke about it to avoid an issue with someone to let someone know that we know he's there with his questions: to disarm him by seeming to have heard and done justice to this side of the standing argument. Humor is the most engaging cowardice.
 * Letter to Louis Untermeyer (10 March 1924)


 * It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound&mdash;that he will never get over it.
 * "The Poetry of Amy Lowell" in The Christian Science Monitor (16 May 1925)

The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, The cliff in being backed by continent; It looked as if a night of dark intent Was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage. There would be more than ocean-water broken Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.
 * You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
 * "Once by the Pacific" (1928)

My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.
 * Tree at my window, window tree,
 * "Tree at My Window" (1928)

Fate had her imagination about her, Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner, weather.
 * That day she put our heads together,
 * "Tree at My Window" (1928)

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.''' I have been one acquainted with the night.
 * '''One luminary clock against the sky
 * "Acquainted with the Night" (1928)

Will keep my talk from getting overwise, I'm not the one for putting off the proof. Let it be overwhelming, off a roof And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust, And blind me to a standstill if it must.
 * If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes
 * Dust in the Eyes (1928)

Can trust itself to go by contraries The way I can with you — and you with me — Because we're — we're — I don't know What we are.
 * It must be the brook
 * "West-running Brook'' (1928)

The brook runs down in sending up our life. The sun runs down in sending up the brook. And there is something sending up the sun.'''
 * '''Our life runs down in sending up the clock.
 * "West-running Brook'' (1928)

The universe seems cramped to you and me.
 * The world has room to make a bear feel free;
 * "The Bear" (1928)


 * Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing. A least lyric alone may have a hard time, but it can make a beginning, and lyric will be piled on lyric till all are easily heard as sung or spoken by a person in a scene — in character, in a setting. By whom, where and when is the question.
 * Preface to A Way Out : A One-act Play (1929)


 * A dramatic necessity goes deep into the nature of the sentence. Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic.
 * Preface to A Way Out : A One-act Play (1929)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)

 * Written in June 1922, published 1923; Full text online at the Poetry Foundation

His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.
 * Whose woods these are I think I know.
 * St. 1

To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
 * My little horse must think it queer
 * St. 2

To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
 * He gives his harness bells a shake
 * St. 3

But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.'''
 * '''The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
 * St. 4

For Once, Then, Something (1923)

 * Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged. Ed. Edward Connery Lathem. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1969.



Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture My myself in the summer heaven, godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, Something more of the depths – and then I lost it. Water came to rebuke the too clear water. One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, Blurred it, blotted it out. '''What was that whiteness? Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.'''
 * Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs

Further Range (1926)

 * Also published as A Further Range (1936)

To do what is done.
 * Let me be the one
 * Ten Mills : Assertive

About the world's despair But to make bad matters worse I found God wasn't there. God turned to speak to me (Don't anybody laugh) God found I wasn't there At least not over half.
 * I turned to speak to God
 * Ten Mills : Not All There

'The best way to hate is the worst. 'Tis to find what the hated need, Never mind of what actual worth, And wipe that out of the earth. Let them die of unsatisfied greed, Of unsatisfied love of display, Of unsatisfied love of the high, Unvulgar, unsoiled, and ideal. Let their trappings be taken away. Let them suffer starvation and die Of being brought down to the real.
 * And be all plunderers curst.
 * "The Vindictives"

A Peck of Gold (1926)

 * |Full text online



Except when sea-fog laid it down, And I was one of the children told Some of the blowing dust was gold.
 * Dust always blowing about the town,

Appeared like god in the sunset sky, But I was one of the children told Some of the dust was really gold.
 * All the dust the wind blew high

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

1930s



 * Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct.
 * "Education by Poetry", speech delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates' Quarterly (February 1931)

It needn’t wait on general revolution. I bid you to a one-man revolution— The only revolution that is coming. '''
 * '''You see the beauty of my proposal is
 * "Build Soil" (1932). Archived from the original in September 5, 2022. The poem “Build Soil—A Political Pastoral” was delivered on May 31, 1932, at Columbia University. Inspired by Virgil’s “First Eclogue,” “Build Soil” discusses the poet in society—how politics and poetry may come together—as well as socialism and his take on the country’s involvement in foreign affairs. Source: poets.org (undated): From the Archive: Robert Frost's 1935 Letter. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022.

Join the United States and join the family — But not much in between, unless a college.
 * Don't join too many gangs. Join few if any.
 * "Build Soil" (1932). Archived from the original in September 5, 2022. The poem “Build Soil—A Political Pastoral” was delivered on May 31, 1932, at Columbia University. Inspired by Virgil’s “First Eclogue,” “Build Soil” discusses the poet in society—how politics and poetry may come together—as well as socialism and his take on the country’s involvement in foreign affairs. Source: poets.org (undated): From the Archive: Robert Frost's 1935 Letter. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022.

You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You´re one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you´re two months back in the middle of March.
 * The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
 * "Two Tramps in Mud-Time", first published in The Saturday Review of Literature, 6 October 1934, st. 3


 * Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
 * Address at Milton Academy, Massachusetts (17 May 1935)

'''My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For heaven and the future´s sakes.'''
 * But yield who will to their separation,
 * "Two Tramps in Mud Time" (1936), st. 9

Atones for later disregard, Or keeps the end from being hard. Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship at your side Than none at all. Provide, provide!
 * No memory of having starred
 * "Provide, Provide" (1936), st. 6 - 7

I can remember when he was a pup.
 * The old dog barks backward without getting up;
 * "The Span of Life" (1936)


 * Who said it mattered / what monkeys did or didn't understand? / They might not understand the burning-glass. / They might not understand the sun itself. / It's knowing what to do with things that counts.
 * "At Woodward's Gardens", 1936


 * Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes all the pressure off the second. My mouth is sealed for the duration of my stay here. I'm not even going to write letters around to explain to collectors my not having had any Christmas card this year. I'm not going to explain anything personal any more.
 * Letter to Sydney Cox (3 January 1937), quoted in Robert Frost : The Trial By Existence (1960) by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, p. 351, and Robert Frost and Sidney Cox: Forty Years of Friendship (1981) by William Richard Evans, p. 223

But wherever the truth may be — The water comes ashore, And the people look at the sea.
 * The land may vary more;
 * "Neither Out Far nor In Deep'' (1937)

Where the spender thinks it went. Nobody was ever meant To remember or invent What he did with every cent.
 * Never ask of money spent
 * "The Hardship of Accounting'' (1937)

But carries no cry of what is hoped to be. There may be little or much beyond the grave, But the strong are saying nothing until they see.'''
 * '''Wind goes from farm to farm in wave on wave,
 * "The Strong Are Saying Nothing'' (1937)

Cannot be parted nor be swept away From one another once you are agreed That life is only life forevermore Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
 * Two such as you with such a master speed
 * "The Master Speed"; the last line is Inscribed beneath his wife's name on the gravestone of Frost and his wife, Elinor (1937)

Their gather-roses burden To warn against the danger That overtaken lovers From being overflooded With happiness should have it And yet not know they have it.
 * 'Twas Age imposed on poems
 * "Carpe Diem'' (1938)

The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)

 * Robert Frost's 1939 Essay The Figure a Poem Makes; Preface to Collected Poems


 * It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same for love.


 * No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.


 * Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting ... Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.


 * Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspect they differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.


 * It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life-not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood-and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for the last. It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad-the happy-sad blend of the drinking song.
 * The portion of "The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom." is often misquoted as: Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.


 * No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew. I am in a place, in a situation, as if I had materialized from cloud or risen out of the ground. There is a glad recognition of the long lost and the rest follows. Step by step the wonder of unexpected supply keeps growing. The impressions most useful to my purpose seem always those I was unaware of and so made no note of at the time when taken, and the conclusion is come to that like giants we are always hurling experience ahead of us to pave the future with against the day when we may Want to strike a line of purpose across it for somewhere. The line will have the more charm for not being mechanically straight. We enjoy the straight crookedness of a good walking stick. Modern instruments of precision are being used to make things crooked as if by eye and hand in the old days.


 * Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country. For myself the originality need be no more than the freshness of a poem run in the way I have described: from delight to wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.

1940s

 * When I see young men doing so wonderfully well in athletics, I don't feel angry at them. I feel jealous of them. I wish that some of my boys in writing would do the same thing. ... You must have form — performance. The thing itself is indescribable, but it is felt like athletic form. To have form, feel form in sports — and by analogy feel form in verse. One works and waits for form in both. As I said, the person who spends his time criticizing the play around him will never write poetry. He will write criticism — for the New Republic.
 * Originally delivered at a poetry reading at Princeton University (26 October 1937), published in Collected Poems, Prose & Plays (1995)

She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.
 * The land was ours before we were the land's.
 * "The Gift Outright" (1941)

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war) To the land vaguely realizing westward, But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, Such as she was, such as she would become.
 * Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
 * "The Gift Outright" (1941)

At midday when the sunny summer breeze Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent, So that in guys it gently sways at ease.
 * She is as in a field a silken tent
 * "The Silken Tent" (1942)

By countless silken ties of love and thought To every thing on earth the compass round, And only by one's going slightly taut In the capriciousness of summer air Is of the slightest bondage made aware.
 * But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
 * "The Silken Tent" (1942)


 * Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
 * Title of poem (1942)

Thrush music went — Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, '''I was out for stars; I would not come in. I meant not even if asked; And I hadn't been.'''
 * Far in the pillared dark
 * "Come In" (1942), st. 4, 5

But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.'''
 * '''We dance round in a ring and suppose,
 * "The Secret Sits" (1942)

"It is this that had the power," And he lashed his open palm With the tender-headed flower.
 * She drew back; he was calm
 * "The Subverted Flower" (1942)

That the birds there in all the garden round From having heard the daylong voice of Eve Had added to their own an oversound, Her tone of meaning but without the words.
 * He would declare and could himself believe
 * "Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same'' (1942)

But all the time it's what we're most concerned with. There's will as motor and there's will as brakes. Reason is, I suppose, the steering gear.'''
 * '''We disparage reason.
 * A Masque of Reason (1945)


 * Deliver us from committees.
 * A Masque of Reason (1945)

The art of life is passing losses on.
 * Take care to sell your horse before he dies.
 * "The Ingenuities of Debt'' (1946)

Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take — and took.
 * Have I not walked without an upward look
 * "Bravado" (1947)

For '''any eye is an evil eye That looks in onto a mood apart.'''
 * I stopped my song and almost heart,
 * "A Mood Apart" (1947)

Too proud to be beholden for relief, Are absolutely sure to come to grief.
 * All those who try to go it sole alone,
 * "Haec Fabula Docet" (1947)

And great it is. But fear is of the soul.'''
 * '''Courage is of the heart by derivation,
 * A Masque of Mercy (1947)

We grant your loftiness the right To some obscurity of cloud —''' It will not do to say of night, Since '''dark is what brings out your light. Some mystery becomes the proud.''' But to be wholly taciturn In your reserve is not allowed. '''Say something to us that we can learn By heart and when alone repeat. Say something! And it says "I burn."'''
 * '''O Star (the fairest one in sight)
 * "Take Something Like a Star" (1949)

It asks of us a certain height. So '''when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may take something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.'''
 * It asks a little of us here.
 * "Take Something Like a Star" (1949)

The Lesson for Today (1942)


Were really as dark as I hear sages tell, And I convinced that they were really sages, I should not curse myself with it to hell'''
 * '''If this uncertain age in which we dwell

Too large a situation.''' You and I Would be afraid if we should comprehend And get outside of too much bad statistics, Our muscles never could again contract: We never could recover human shape, But must live lives out mentally agape Or die of philosophical distention. That's how we feel — and we're no special mystics.
 * '''They've tried to grasp with too much social fact

But for the folly of it, let's pretend We know enough to know it for adverse.
 * We can't appraise the time in which we act.

Or missed their chance, or not have been their best, Or been their riches, fame, or love denied; On me as much as any is the jest. I take my incompleteness with the rest.''' God bless himself can no one else be blessed.
 * '''I may have wept that any should have died

I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori. And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

Directive (1947)

 * Full poem and analysis at 'Hard to Understand, but Easy to Love' by David Yezzi in The Wall Street Journal (10 April 2010)



Back in a time made simple by the loss Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a house Upon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town.''' The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you Who only has at heart your getting lost, May seem as if it should have been a quarry – Great monolithic knees the former town Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered. And there's a story in a book about it...
 * '''Back out of all this now too much for us,

That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves, Charge that to upstart inexperience. Where were they all not twenty years ago? '''They think too much of having shaded out A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.'''
 * As for the woods' excitement over you

Of country where two village cultures faded Into each other. Both of them are lost.''' And if you're lost enough to find yourself By now, pull in your ladder road behind you And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
 * '''The height of the adventure is the height

Some shattered dishes underneath a pine, The playthings in the playhouse of the children. Weep for what little things could make them glad.
 * First there's the children's house of make-believe,

Your destination and your destiny's A brook that was the water of the house, Cold as a spring as yet so near its source, Too lofty and original to rage.''' (We know the valley streams that when aroused Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
 * '''This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.

Of an old cedar at the waterside A broken drinking goblet like the Grail Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it''', So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn't. (I stole the goblet from the children's playhouse.) '''Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.'''
 * '''I have kept hidden in the instep arch

1950s

 * Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
 * As quoted in a review of A Swinger of Birches (1957) by Sydney Cox in Vermont History, Vol. 25 (1957), p. 355


 * A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.
 * BBC Interview with Cecil Day Lewis (13 September 1957); transcripts published in "It Takes a Hero to Make a Poem" in the Claremont Quarterly (Spring 1958)


 * The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
 * As quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) edited by Herbert Victor Prochnow
 * As quoted at page 212 in The Pocket Book of Quips and Quotes (1996) by Rajendra Pillai, Copyright 1996 The Saint Paul Society Bombay, 2nd Print 1999


 * People are inexterminable — like flies and bed-bugs. There will always be some that survive in cracks and crevices — that's us.
 * "London Observer'' (29 March 1959)


 * How many times it thundered before Franklin took the hint! How many apples fell on Newton's head before he took the hint! Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.
 * Lives of the Poets : The Story of One Thousand Years of English and American Poetry (1959) by Louis Untermeyer

1960s

 * It is only a moment here and a moment there that the greatest writer has. Some cognizance of the fact must be taken in your teaching.
 * As quoted in Robert Frost : The Trial by Existence (1960) by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, p. 174


 * Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.
 * As quoted in Robert Frost: the Trial by Existence (1960) by Elizabeth S. Sergeant, Ch. 18


 * A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.
 * As quoted by Guy Davenport (The Geography of the Imagination) at page x in A Liberal Education by Abbott Gleason (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Tide Pool Press, 2010).
 * As quoted by Harvey Shapiro “Story of the Poem”, 15 January 1961, New York (NY) Times, Section SM page 6.
 * An earlier unattributed version of this quip appeared in What Man Can Make of Man (1942) by William Ernest Hocking: "He lends himself to the gibe that he is 'so very liberal, that he cannot bring himself to take his own side in a quarrel.'" Source: Barry Popik (December 6, 2009): The Big Apple: “A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel”. Archived from the original on August 21, 2022.


 * A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
 * Quoted in Fire and Ice: The Art and Thought of Robert Frost (1961) by Lawrence Thompson

And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.'''
 * '''Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
 * "Forgive, O Lord," In the Clearing (1962)
 * First published in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (12 November 1960), p. 157

Man's practically inexterminate. Someday I must go into that. There's always been an Ararat Where someone someone else begat To start the world all over at.
 * I am assured at any rate
 * "A-Wishing Well" (1962)

To get adapted to my kind of fooling.
 * It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling
 * "It Takes All Sorts" (1962)

There was not a trace Of a thinking race Anywhere in space.
 * Till we came to be
 * "Kitty Hawk'' (1962)

I but obey The urge of a song: I'm&mdash;bound&mdash;away! And I may return If dissatisfied With what I learn From having died.
 * Unless I'm wrong
 * "Away!" (1962), st. 5,6

All is an interminable chain of longing.'''
 * '''It is the future that creates his present.
 * "Escapist — Never'' (1962)

That's what at the end of a war We always say not who won it, Or what it was foughten for.
 * “Well, who begun it?”
 * "Lines Written in Dejection on the Eve of Great Success'' (1962)


 * Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.
 * As quoted in Vogue (14 March 1963)


 * You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular.... The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.
 * Interview in Writers at Work (1963)


 * You've often heard me say – perhaps too often – that poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. That little poem means just what it says and it says what it means, nothing less but nothing more.
 * Robert Frost: A Backward Look, by Louis Untermeyer (1964), p. 18

Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
 * All out of doors looked darkly in at him
 * "An Old Man's Winter Night"

Dedication (1960)

 * "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration" (1960), the poem is also known as "Dedication". Frost had planned to read "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration" at John F. Kennedy's imauguration, but the blinding light from the sun and snow prompted him to recite "The Gift Outright" from memory. Source: Tuten, Nancy Lewis; Zubizarreta, John (2001). The Robert Frost Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 9780313294648. Online Source: "The poem Robert Frost wanted to read at John F. Kennedy's inauguration" by Alan Wirzbicki on January 20, 2011 at www.boston.com; archived from the original on August 21, 2022.



In the august occasions of the state Seems something artists ought to celebrate.'''
 * '''Summoning artists to participate

And his be poetry's old-fashioned praise Who was the first to think of such a thing. '''This verse that in acknowledgement I bring Goes back to the beginning of the end Of what had been for centuries the trend; A turning point in modern history.'''
 * Today is for my cause a day of days.

As long as the great issue was to see What country'd be the one to dominate By character, by tongue, by native trait, The new world Christopher Columbus found. The French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were downed And counted out. Heroic deeds were done. Elizabeth the First and England won. Now came on a new order of the ages That in the Latin of our founding sages (Is it not written on the dollar bill We carry in our purse and pocket still?)
 * Colonial had been the thing to be

So much those heroes knew and understood, I mean '''the great four, Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison So much they saw as consecrated seers They must have seen ahead what not appears, They would bring empires down about our ears And by the example of our Declaration Make everybody want to be a nation.'''
 * God nodded his approval of as good.

At the expense of negligible folk. We see how seriously the races swarm In their attempts at sovereignty and form. They are our wards we think to some extent For the time being and with their consent, To teach them how Democracy is meant.'''
 * And '''this is no aristocratic joke

If it looks none too orderly today, 'Tis a confusion it was ours to start So in it have to take courageous part. No one of honest feeling would approve A ruler who pretended not to love A turbulence he had the better of.'''
 * '''"New order of the ages" did they say?

Who gave America the aeroplane To ride the whirlwind and the hurricane. '''Some poor fool has been saying in his heart Glory is out of date in life and art.''' Our venture in revolution and outlawry Has justified itself in freedom's story Right down to now in glory upon glory.
 * Everyone knows the glory of the twain

The greatest vote a people ever cast, So close yet sure to be abided by, It is no miracle our mood is high.'''
 * '''Come fresh from an election like the last,

Better than all the stalemate an's and ifs.'''
 * '''Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs

For the emboldened politicians daring To break with followers when in the wrong, A healthy independence of the throng, A democratic form of right divine To rule first answerable to high design. There is a call to life a little sterner, And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.''' Less criticism of the field and court And more preoccupation with the sport.
 * '''There was the book of profile tales declaring

'''The glory of a next Augustan age Of a power leading from its strength and pride, Of young ambition eager to be tried, Firm in our free beliefs without dismay, In any game the nations want to play. A golden age of poetry and power Of which this noonday's the beginning hour.'''
 * It makes the prophet in us all presage

Undated



 * Every artist must have two fears -- the fear of God and the fear of man -- fear of God that his creation will ultimately be found unworthy and the fear of man that he will be misunderstood by his fellows.
 * Before an audience of young writers gathered under Bread Loaf Mountains at Middlebury, Vermont. As quoted in the following source: Associated Press (30 January 1963). "Robert Frost Dies at 88; Kennedy Leads in Tribute". New York Times. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2014.


 * If poetry isn't understanding all, the whole word, then it isn't worth anything. Young poets forget that poetry must include the mind as well as the emotions. Too many poets delude themselves by thinking the mind is dangerous and must be left out. Well, the mind is dangerous and must be left in.
 * Interview with with Harvey Breit of The New York Times Book Review. As quoted in the following source: Associated Press (30 January 1963). "Robert Frost Dies at 88; Kennedy Leads in Tribute". New York Times. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2014.


 * In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on.
 * As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 261


 * The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.
 * As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 419


 * The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended — and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended.
 * As quoted in Bartlett's Book of Love Quotations (1994)

Quotes about Robert Frost



 * This day devoted to the memory of Robert Frost offers an opportunity for reflection which is prized by politicians as well as by others, and even by poets, for Robert Frost was one of the granite figures of our time in America. He was supremely two things: an artist and an American. A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers. In America, our heroes have customarily run to men of large accomplishments. But today this college and country honors a man whose contribution was not to our size but to our spirit, not to our political beliefs but to our insight, not to our self-esteem, but to our self- comprehension. In honoring Robert Frost, we therefore can pay honor to the deepest sources of our national strength. That strength takes many forms, and the most obvious forms are not always the most significant. The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.
 * John F. Kennedy, Remarks upon receiving an honorary degree, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (October 26, 1963); reported in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 817. In his speech President Kennedy explains the importance of public service from educated citizens, and describes the role of an artist in society, noting Frost’s contributions to American arts, culture, and ideology. The President discusses the nature of strength and power, famously stating, “When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” See also: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (October 26, 1963): Remarks at Amherst College on the Arts. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022.


 * Our national strength matters, but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much. This was the special significance of Robert Frost. He brought an unsparing instinct for reality to bear on the platitudes and pieties of society. His sense of the human tragedy fortified him against self-deception and easy consolation. "I have been" he wrote, "one acquainted with the night." And because he knew the midnight as well as the high noon, because he understood the ordeal as well as the triumph of the human spirit, he gave his age strength with which to overcome despair. At bottom, he held a deep faith in the spirit of man, and it is hardly an accident that Robert Frost coupled poetry and power, for he saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
 * John F. Kennedy, Remarks upon receiving an honorary degree, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (October 26, 1963); reported in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 817. In his speech President Kennedy explains the importance of public service from educated citizens, and describes the role of an artist in society, noting Frost’s contributions to American arts, culture, and ideology. The President discusses the nature of strength and power, famously stating, “When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” See also: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (October 26, 1963): Remarks at Amherst College on the Arts. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022.


 * Robert Frost was often skeptical about projects for human improvement, yet I do not think he would disdain this hope. As he wrote during the uncertain days of the Second War: Take human nature altogether since time began . . . And it must be a little more in favor of man, Say a fraction of one percent at the very least . . . Our hold on this planet wouldn't have so increased.  Because of Mr. Frost's life and work, because of the life and work of this college, our hold on this planet has increased.
 * John F. Kennedy, Remarks upon receiving an honorary degree, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (October 26, 1963); reported in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 817. In his speech President Kennedy explains the importance of public service from educated citizens, and describes the role of an artist in society, noting Frost’s contributions to American arts, culture, and ideology. The President discusses the nature of strength and power, famously stating, “When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” See also: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (October 26, 1963): Remarks at Amherst College on the Arts. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022.


 * Translators, again-the most abused and patient lot of folk on earth-are helpful in making us better acquainted; though we hope the time will soon come when citizens of the twenty-one republics will no longer need translators. There is no reason for our not speaking each other's language...Ernesto Montenegro, on the other hand, has introduced Sandburg, Frost, Robinson, Masters, and many other North American poets to the Spanish reading public.
 * Muna Lee (writer) "Cultural Interchanges between the Americas" (1929) in A Pan-American Life: Selected Poetry and Prose of Muna Lee, edited and with biography by Jonathan Cohen


 * What I'm trying to do is something defined by Robert Frost: when he said "a poem is a momentary stay against confusion." When you write a poem you have a moment in which all confusion ceases and you understand one thing perfectly.
 * Judith Ortiz Cofer Puerto Rican Voices in English: Interviews with Writers by Carmen Dolores Hernandez	 1997


 * "But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep." Taken from a popular poem by Robert Frost, these two lines could serve as an anthem for Mexican women in the Southwest, women who, as a social and economic group, still find themselves at or near the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.
 * Vicki L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America


 * The poet stands in relation to Nature; this does not mean landscape, as Robert Frost points out, but "the whole Goddamn machinery."
 * Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)

Disputed

 * In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.
 * Attributed to Robert Frost in Richard Evans' Quote Book (Publishers Press, 1973), p. 109