Robert Frost

They sent him back to her. The letter came Saying.... And she could have him. And before She could be sure there was no hidden ill Under the formal writing, he was in her sight, Living. They gave him back to her alive-- How else? They are not known to send the dead-- And not disfigured visibly. His face? His hands? She had to look, to ask, ‘What is it, dear?’ And she had given all And still she had all--they had--they the lucky! Wasn’t she glad now? Everything seemed won, And all the rest for them permissible ease. She had to ask, ‘What was it, dear?’

‘Enough, Yet not enough. A bullet through and through, High in the breast. Nothing but what good care And medicine and rest, and you a week, Can cure me of to go again.’ The same Grim giving to do over for them both. She dared no more than ask him with her eyes How was it with him for a second trial. And with his eyes he asked her not to ask. They had given him back to her, but not to keep.

As far as I can see this autumn haze That spreading in the evening air both ways, Makes the new moon look anything but new, And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue, Is all the smoke from one poor house alone With but one chimney it can call its own; So close it will not light an early light, Keeping its life so close and out of sight No one for hours has set a foot outdoors So much as to take care of evening chores. The inmates may be lonely women-folk. I want to tell them that with all this smoke They prudently are spinning their cocoon And anchoring it to an earth and moon From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,-- Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it.

Out alone in the winter rain, Intent on giving and taking pain. But never was I far out of sight Of a certain upper-window light. The light was what it was all about: I would not go in till the light went out; It would not go out till I came in. Well, we should see which one would win, We should see which one would be first to yield. The world was a black invisible field. The rain by rights was snow for cold. The wind was another layer of mould. But the strangest thing: in the thick old thatch, Where summer birds had been given hatch, Had fed in chorus, and lived to fledge, Some still were living in hermitage. And as I passed along the eaves, So low I brushed the straw with my sleeves, I flushed birds out of hole after hole, Into the darkness. It grieved my soul, It started a grief within a grief, To think their case was beyond relief-- They could not go flying about in search Of their nest again, nor find a perch. They must brood where they fell in mulch and mire, Trusting feathers and inward fire Till daylight made it safe for a flyer. My greater grief was by so much reduced As I thought of them without nest or roost. That was how that grief started to melt. They tell me the cottage where we dwelt, Its wind-torn thatch goes now unmended; Its life of hundreds of years has ended By letting the rain I knew outdoors In on to the upper chamber floors.

Sea waves are green and wet, But up from where they die, Rise others vaster yet, And those are brown and dry.

They are the sea made land To come at the fisher town, And bury in solid sand The men she could not drown.

She may know cove and cape, But she does not know mankind If by any change of shape, She hopes to cut off mind.

Men left her a ship to sink: They can leave her a hut as well; And be but more free to think For the one more cast off shell.

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, 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.

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

The desolate, deserted trees, 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.

Not yesterday I learned to know 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.

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 sha’n’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, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I sha’n’t be gone long.--You come too.

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs 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 Me 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.

It is blue-butterfly day here in spring, And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry There is more unmixed color on the wing Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing: And now from having ridden out desire They lie closed over in the wind and cling Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.