17. Good Hours   
   
   
I HAD for my winter evening walk—      
No one at all with whom to talk,      
But I had the cottages in a row      
Up to their shining eyes in snow.      
   
And I thought I had the folk within:           5   
I had the sound of a violin;      
I had a glimpse through curtain laces      
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.      
   
I had such company outward bound.      
I went till there were no cottages found.           10   
I turned and repented, but coming back      
I saw no window but that was black.      
   
Over the snow my creaking feet      
Disturbed the slumbering village street      
Like profanation, by your leave,           15   
At ten o’clock of a winter eve.

   
Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.   
     
Contents

   
The Road Not Taken
Christmas Trees
An Old Man’s Winter Night
A Patch of Old Snow
In the Home Stretch
The Telephone
Meeting and Passing
Hyla Brook
The Oven Bird
Bond and Free
Birches
Pea Brush
Putting in the Seed
A Time to Talk
The Cow in Apple Time
An Encounter
Range-finding
The Hill Wife
The Bonfire
A Girl’s Garden
The Exposed Nest
“Out, Out—”
Brown’s Descent, or the Willy-nilly Slide
The Gum-gatherer
The Line-gang
The Vanishing Red
Snow
The Sound of the Trees

   
1. 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;           5   
   
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,           10   
   
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.           15   
   
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.           20

2. 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THE CITY had withdrawn into itself      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,           5   
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           10   
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.           15   
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.           20   
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.           25   
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,           30   
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           35   
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.           40   
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:           45   
“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           50   
(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           55   
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.           60   
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,      
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.      

3. 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.           5   
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           10   
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           15   
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           20   
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.           25   
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.

4. 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           5   
  Small print overspread it,      
The news of a day I’ve forgotten—      
  If I ever read it.      

   
5. 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,           5   
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           10   
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           15   
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?”           20   
   
“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,           25   
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.”           30   
   
“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           35   
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           40   
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           45   
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           50   
In alternation with the weeds, the field,      
The wood.”      
   
“What kind of years?”      
“Why, latter years—      
Different from early years.”           55   
“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           60   
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,           65   
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,           70   
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!           75   
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           80   
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.”           85   
   
“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           90   
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,           95   
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           100   
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           105   
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           110   
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           115   
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—           120   
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           125   
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.”           130   
   
“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.”           135   
   
“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.           140   
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.”           145   
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           150   
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.”           155   
   
“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           160   
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.           165   
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.”           170   
   
“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.”           175   
   
“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           180   
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.           185   
   
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.           190   
There are only middles.”      
   
“What is this?”      
“This life?      
Our sitting here by lantern-light together      
Amid the wreckage of a former home?           195   
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           200   
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.”           205   
   
“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           210   
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,           215   
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:           220   
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,           225   
As much at home as if they’d always danced there.      

   
6. 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           5   
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.”           10   
   
“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?           15   
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.”      

7. 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           5   
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           10   
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.

8. 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,           5   
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           10   
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.           15