A Time To Talk

Robert Frost · 1916

Catalog grade guidance: 5–12 — Mountain Interval (1916), US public domain.

11 content lines · 81 words · Est. recitation about 45 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg eBooks #3021 (A Boy's Will, 1913), #3026 (North of Boston, 1914) and #29345 (Mountain Interval, 1916).Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

A TIME TO TALK

  When a friend calls to me from the road
  And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
  I don't stand still and look around
  On all the hills I haven't hoed,
  And shout from where I am, What is it?
  No, not as there is a time to talk.
  I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
  Blade-end up and five feet tall,
  And plod: I go up to the stone wall
  For a friendly visit.