The Oven Bird

Robert Frost · 1913–1916

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

15 content lines · 121 words · Est. recitation about 1 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.

THE OVEN BIRD

  There is a singer everyone has heard,
  Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
  Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
  He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
  Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
  He says the early petal-fall is past
  When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
  On sunny days a moment overcast;
  And comes that other fall we name the fall.
  He says the highway dust is over all.
  The bird would cease and be as other birds
  But that he knows in singing not to sing.
  The question that he frames in all but words
  Is what to make of a diminished thing.