Stars

Robert Frost · 1913–1916

Catalog grade guidance: 6–12 — From Frost’s first three books (US public domain: published 1913–1916).

77 content lines · 414 words · Est. recitation about 4 min 1 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.

Stars

    HOW countlessly they congregate
    O'er our tumultuous snow,
    Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
    When wintry winds do blow!--
    As if with keenness for our fate,
    Our faltering few steps on
    To white rest, and a place of rest
    Invisible at dawn,--
    And yet with neither love nor hate,
    Those stars like some snow-white
    Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
    Without the gift of sight.

Storm Fear

    WHEN the wind works against us in the dark,
    And pelts with snow
    The lowest chamber window on the east,
    And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,
    The beast,
    'Come out! Come out!'--
    It costs no inward struggle not to go,
    Ah, no!
    I count our strength,
    Two and a child,
    Those of us not asleep subdued to mark
    How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,--
    How drifts are piled,
    Dooryard and road ungraded,
    Till even the comforting barn grows far away
    And my heart owns a doubt
    Whether 'tis in us to arise with day
    And save ourselves unaided.

Wind and Window Flower

    LOVERS, forget your love,
    And list to the love of these,
    She a window flower,
    And he a winter breeze.
    When the frosty window veil
    Was melted down at noon,
    And the cagèd yellow bird
    Hung over her in tune,
    He marked her through the pane,
    He could not help but mark,
    And only passed her by,
    To come again at dark.
    He was a winter wind,
    Concerned with ice and snow,
    Dead weeds and unmated birds,
    And little of love could know.
    But he sighed upon the sill,
    He gave the sash a shake,
    As witness all within
    Who lay that night awake.
    Perchance he half prevailed
    To win her for the flight
    From the firelit looking-glass
    And warm stove-window light.
    But the flower leaned aside
    And thought of naught to say,
    And morning found the breeze
    A hundred miles away.

To the Thawing Wind (audio)

    COME with rain, O loud Southwester!
    Bring the singer, bring the nester;
    Give the buried flower a dream;
    Make the settled snow-bank steam;
    Find the brown beneath the white;
    But whate'er you do to-night,
    Bathe my window, make it flow,
    Melt it as the ices go;
    Melt the glass and leave the sticks
    Like a hermit's crucifix;
    Burst into my narrow stall;
    Swing the picture on the wall;
    Run the rattling pages o'er;
    Scatter poems on the floor;
    Turn the poet out of door.