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Good Hours
Robert Frost · 1913–1916
Catalog grade guidance: 6–8 — Frost early-book lyric from hosted PD text (1913–1916).
162 content lines · 1046 words · Est. recitation about 10 min 7 sec (approx.)
Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg #3021 / #3026 / #29345.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.
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:
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.
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,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve.
Produced by David Starner, Katherine Ward and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: ROBERT FROST
From the original in plaster by AROLDO DU CHÊNE
_Copyright, Henry Holt and Company_]
MOUNTAIN INTERVAL
BY
ROBERT FROST
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1916, 1921
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
_May, 1931_
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY, N. J.
* * * * *
TO YOU
WHO LEAST NEED REMINDING
that before this interval of the South Branch under black
mountains, there was another interval, the Upper at Plymouth,
where we walked in spring beyond the covered bridge; but that
the first interval of all was the old farm, our brook interval,
so called by the man we had it from in sale.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 9
CHRISTMAS TREES 11
AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT 14
A PATCH OF OLD SNOW 15
IN THE HOME STRETCH 16
THE TELEPHONE 24
MEETING AND PASSING 25
HYLA BROOK 26
THE OVEN BIRD 27
BOND AND FREE 28
BIRCHES 29
PEA BRUSH 31
PUTTING IN THE SEED 32
A TIME TO TALK 33
THE COW IN APPLE TIME 34
AN ENCOUNTER 35
RANGE-FINDING 36
THE HILL WIFE 37
I LONELINESS--HER WORD 37
II HOUSE FEAR 37
III THE SMILE--HER WORD 38
IV THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM 38
V THE IMPULSE 39
THE BONFIRE 41
A GIRL'S GARDEN 45
THE EXPOSED NEST 48
"OUT, OUT--" 50
BROWN'S DESCENT OR THE WILLY-NILLY SLIDE 52
THE GUM-GATHERER 56
THE LINE-GANG 58
THE VANISHING RED 59
SNOW 61
THE SOUND OF THE TREES 75
_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;_
_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,_
_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._
_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._
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,
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
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.
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.
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.
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,
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
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.
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:
"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
(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
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.
I can't help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.