Hyla Brook

Robert Frost · 1913–1916

Catalog grade guidance: 6–8 — Frost early-book lyric from hosted PD text (1913–1916).

16 content lines · 126 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 10 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.

HYLA BROOK

  By June our brook's run out of song and speed.
  Sought for much after that, it will be found
  Either to have gone groping underground
  (And taken with it all the Hyla breed
  That shouted in the mist a month ago,
  Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)--
  Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
  Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
  Even against the way its waters went.
  Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
  Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat--
  A brook to none but who remember long.
  This as it will be seen is other far
  Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
  We love the things we love for what they are.