Poems by Robert Frost

Reluctance

by Robert Frost

From Canary Fall 2012

(1874-1963)

At the writing of this poem in 1923, Robert Frost lived on a farm in Derry, New Hampshire, in the Beaver Brook watershed near Pine Island Pond.

Out through the fields and the woods
     And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
     And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
     And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
     Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
     And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
     When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
     No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
     The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
     But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man
     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?

© Robert Frost

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

From Canary Winter 2012-13

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

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

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

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