Poems of Robert Frost. Large Collection, includes A Boy's Will, North of Boston and Mountain Interval

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Poems of Robert Frost. Large Collection, includes A Boy's Will, North of Boston and Mountain Interval Page 4

by Robert Frost

Of course he’s nothing to us, any more

  Than was the hound that came a stranger to us

  Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.”

  “Home is the place where, when you have to go there,

  They have to take you in.”

  “I should have called it

  Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”

  Warren leaned out and took a step or two,

  Picked up a little stick, and brought it back

  And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.

  “Silas has better claim on us you think

  Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles

  As the road winds would bring him to his door.

  Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.

  Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich,

  A somebody—director in the bank.”

  “He never told us that.”

  “We know it though.”

  “I think his brother ought to help, of course.

  I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right

  To take him in, and might be willing to—

  He may be better than appearances.

  But have some pity on Silas. Do you think

  If he’d had any pride in claiming kin

  Or anything he looked for from his brother,

  He’d keep so still about him all this time?”

  “I wonder what’s between them.”

  “I can tell you.

  Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—

  But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.

  He never did a thing so very bad.

  He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good

  As anyone. He won’t be made ashamed

  To please his brother, worthless though he is.”

  “I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.”

  “No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay

  And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.

  He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.

  You must go in and see what you can do.

  I made the bed up for him there to-night.

  You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.

  His working days are done; I’m sure of it.”

  “I’d not be in a hurry to say that.”

  “I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.

  But, Warren, please remember how it is:

  He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.

  He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.

  He may not speak of it, and then he may.

  I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud

  Will hit or miss the moon.”

  It hit the moon.

  Then there were three there, making a dim row,

  The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

  Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,

  Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

  “Warren,” she questioned.

  “Dead,” was all he answered.

  The Mountain

  The mountain held the town as in a shadow

  I saw so much before I slept there once:

  I noticed that I missed stars in the west,

  Where its black body cut into the sky.

  Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall

  Behind which I was sheltered from a wind.

  And yet between the town and it I found,

  When I walked forth at dawn to see new things,

  Were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields.

  The river at the time was fallen away,

  And made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones;

  But the signs showed what it had done in spring;

  Good grass-land gullied out, and in the grass

  Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark.

  I crossed the river and swung round the mountain.

  And there I met a man who moved so slow

  With white-faced oxen in a heavy cart,

  It seemed no hand to stop him altogether.

  “What town is this?” I asked.

  “This? Lunenburg.”

  Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn,

  Beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain,

  But only felt at night its shadowy presence.

  “Where is your village? Very far from here?”

  “There is no village—only scattered farms.

  We were but sixty voters last election.

  We can’t in nature grow to many more:

  That thing takes all the room!” He moved his goad.

  The mountain stood there to be pointed at.

  Pasture ran up the side a little way,

  And then there was a wall of trees with trunks:

  After that only tops of trees, and cliffs

  Imperfectly concealed among the leaves.

  A dry ravine emerged from under boughs

  Into the pasture.

  “That looks like a path.

  Is that the way to reach the top from here?—

  Not for this morning, but some other time:

  I must be getting back to breakfast now.”

  “I don’t advise your trying from this side.

  There is no proper path, but those that have

  Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd’s.

  That’s five miles back. You can’t mistake the place:

  They logged it there last winter some way up.

  I’d take you, but I’m bound the other way.”

  “You’ve never climbed it?”

  “I’ve been on the sides

  Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There’s a brook

  That starts up on it somewhere—I’ve heard say

  Right on the top, tip-top—a curious thing.

  But what would interest you about the brook,

  It’s always cold in summer, warm in winter.

  One of the great sights going is to see

  It steam in winter like an ox’s breath,

  Until the bushes all along its banks

  Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles—

  You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!”

  “There ought to be a view around the world

  From such a mountain—if it isn’t wooded

  Clear to the top.” I saw through leafy screens

  Great granite terraces in sun and shadow,

  Shelves one could rest a knee on getting up—

  With depths behind him sheer a hundred feet;

  Or turn and sit on and look out and down,

  With little ferns in crevices at his elbow.

  “As to that I can’t say. But there’s the spring,

  Right on the summit, almost like a fountain.

  That ought to be worth seeing.”

  “If it’s there.

  You never saw it?”

  “I guess there’s no doubt

  About its being there. I never saw it.

  It may not be right on the very top:

  It wouldn’t have to be a long way down

  To have some head of water from above,

  And a good distance down might not be noticed

  By anyone who’d come a long way up.

  One time I asked a fellow climbing it

  To look and tell me later how it was.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said there was a lake

  Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top.”

  “But a lake’s different. What about the spring?”

  “He never got up high enough to see.

  That’s why I don’t advise your trying this side.

  He tried this side. I’ve always meant to go

  And look myself, but you know how it is:

  It doesn’t seem so much to climb a mountain

  You’ve worked around the foot of all your life.

  What would I do? Go in my overalls,

&
nbsp; With a big stick, the same as when the cows

  Haven’t come down to the bars at milking time?

  Or with a shotgun for a stray black bear?

  ’Twouldn’t seem real to climb for climbing it.”

  “I shouldn’t climb it if I didn’t want to—

  Not for the sake of climbing. What’s its name?”

  “We call it Hor:16 I don’t know if that’s right.”

  “Can one walk around it? Would it be too far?”

  “You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg,

  But it’s as much as ever you can do,

  The boundary lines keep in so close to it.

  Hor is the township, and the township’s Hor—

  And a few houses sprinkled round the foot,

  Like boulders broken off the upper cliff,

  Rolled out a little farther than the rest.”

  “Warm in December, cold in June, you say?”

  “I don’t suppose the water’s changed at all.

  You and I know enough to know it’s warm

  Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm.

  But all the fun’s in how you say a thing.”

  “You’ve lived here all your life?”

  “Ever since Hor

  Was no bigger than a——” What, I did not hear.

  He drew the oxen toward him with light touches

  Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank,

  Gave them their marching orders and was moving.

  A Hundred Collars

  Lancaster bore him—such a little town,

  Such a great man. It doesn’t see him often

  Of late years, though he keeps the old homestead

  And sends the children down there with their mother

  To run wild in the summer—a little wild.

  Sometimes he joins them for a day or two

  And sees old friends he somehow can’t get near.

  They meet him in the general store at night,

  Pre-occupied with formidable mail,

  Rifling a printed letter as he talks.

  They seem afraid. He wouldn’t have it so:

  Though a great scholar, he’s a democrat,

  If not at heart, at least on principle.

  Lately when coming up to Lancaster

  His train being late he missed another train

  And had four hours to wait at Woodsville Junction

  After eleven o’clock at night. Too tired

  To think of sitting such an ordeal out,

  He turned to the hotel to find a bed.

  “No room,” the night clerk said. “Unless——”

  Woodsville’s a place of shrieks and wandering lamps

  And cars that shook and rattle—and one hotel.

  “You say ‘unless.’”

  “Unless you wouldn’t mind

  Sharing a room with someone else.”

  “Who is it?”

  “A man.”

  “So I should hope. What kind of man?”

  “I know him: he’s all right. A man’s a man.

  Separate beds of course you understand.”

  The night clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on.

  “Who’s that man sleeping in the office chair?

  Has he had the refusal of my chance?”

  “He was afraid of being robbed or murdered.

  What do you say?”

  “I’ll have to have a bed.”

  The night clerk led him up three flights of stairs

  And down a narrow passage full of doors,

  At the last one of which he knocked and entered.

  “Lafe, here’s a fellow wants to share your room.”

  “Show him this way. I’m not afraid of him.

  I’m not so drunk I can’t take care of myself.”

  The night clerk clapped a bedstead on the foot.

  “This will be yours. Good-night,” he said, and went.

  “Lafe was the name, I think?”

  “Yes, Layfayette.

  You got it the first time. And yours?”

  “Magoon.

  Doctor Magoon.”

  “A Doctor?”

  “Well, a teacher.”

  “Professor Square-the-circle-till-you’re-tired?

  Hold on, there’s something I don’t think of now

  That I had on my mind to ask the first

  Man that knew anything I happened in with.

  I’ll ask you later—don’t let me forget it.”

  The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away.

  A man? A brute. Naked above the waist,

  He sat there creased and shining in the light,

  Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt.

  “I’m moving into a size-larger shirt.

  I’ve felt mean lately; mean’s no name for it.

  I just found what the matter was to-night:

  I’ve been a-choking like a nursery tree

  When it outgrows the wire band of its name tag.

  I blamed it on the hot spell we’ve been having.

  ’Twas nothing but my foolish hanging back,

  Not liking to own up I’d grown a size.

  Number eighteen this is. What size do you wear?”

  The Doctor caught his throat convulsively.

  “Oh—ah—fourteen—fourteen.”

  “Fourteen! You say so!

  I can remember when I wore fourteen.

  And come to think I must have back at home

  More than a hundred collars, size fourteen.

  Too bad to waste them all. You ought to have them.

  They’re yours and welcome; let me send them to you.

  What makes you stand there on one leg like that?

  You’re not much furtherer than where Kike left you.

  You act as if you wished you hadn’t come.

  Sit down or lie down, friend; you make me nervous.”

  The Doctor made a subdued dash for it,

  And propped himself at bay against a pillow.

  “Not that way, with your shoes on Kike’s white bed.

  You can’t rest that way. Let me pull your shoes off.”

  “Don’t touch me, please—I say, don’t touch me, please.

  I’ll not be put to bed by you, my man.”

  “Just as you say. Have it your own way then.

  ‘My man’ is it? You talk like a professor.

  Speaking of who’s afraid of who, however,

  I’m thinking I have more to lose than you

  If anything should happen to be wrong.

  Who wants to cut your number fourteen throat!

  Let’s have a show down as an evidence

  Of good faith. There is ninety dollars.

  Come, if you’re not afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid.

  There’s five: that’s all I carry.”

  “I can search you?

  Where are you moving over to? Stay still.

  You’d better tuck your money under you

  And sleep on it the way I always do

  When I’m with people I don’t trust at night.”

  “Will you believe me if I put it there

  Right on the counterpane—that I do trust you?”

  “You’d say so, Mister Man.—I’m a collector.

  My ninety isn’t mine—you won’t think that.

  I pick it up a dollar at a time

  All round the country for the Weekly News,

  Published in Bow. You know the Weekly News?”

  “Known it since I was young.”

  “Then you know me.

  Now we are getting on together—talking.

  I’m sort of Something for it at the front.

  My business is to find what people want:

  They pay for it, and so they ought to have it.

  Fairbanks, he says to me—he’s editor—

  Feel out the public sentiment—he says.

  A good deal comes on me when all is said.

&n
bsp; The only trouble is we disagree

  In politics: I’m Vermont Democrat—

  You know what that is, sort of double-dyed;

  The News has always been Republican.

  Fairbanks, he says to me, ‘Help us this year,’

  Meaning by us their ticket. ‘No,’ I says,

  ‘I can’t and won’t. You’ve been in long enough:

  It’s time you turned around and boosted us.

  You’ll have to pay me more than ten a week

  If I’m expected to elect Bill Taft.

  I doubt if I could do it anyway.’”

  “You seem to shape the paper’s policy.”

  “You see I’m in with everybody, know ’em all.

  I almost know their farms as well as they do.”

  “You drive around? It must be pleasant work.”

  “It’s business, but I can’t say it’s not fun.

  What I like best’s the lay of different farms,

  Coming out on them from a stretch of woods,

  Or over a hill or round a sudden corner.

  I like to find folks getting out in spring,

  Raking the dooryard, working near the house.

  Later they get out further in the fields.

  Everything’s shut sometimes except the barn;

  The family’s all away in some back meadow.

  There’s a hay load a-coming—when it comes.

  And later still they all get driven in:

  The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches

  Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees

  To whips and poles. There’s nobody about.

  The chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk smoking.

  And I lie back and ride. I take the reins

 

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