New Hampshire Robert Frost (books you need to read TXT) š
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- Author: Robert Frost
Book online Ā«New Hampshire Robert Frost (books you need to read TXT) šĀ». Author Robert Frost
Just then come you and I to gather it.
Only you have the advantage of the grapes
In one way: you have one more stem to cling by,
And promise more resistance to the picker.ā
One by one I lost off my hat and shoes,
And still I clung. I let my head fall back,
And shut my eyes against the sun, my ears
Against my brotherās nonsense; āDrop,ā he said,
āIāll catch you in my arms. It isnāt far.ā
(Stated in lengths of him it might not be.)
āDrop or Iāll shake the tree and shake you down.ā
Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,
My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings.
āWhy, if she isnāt serious about it!
Hold tight awhile till I think what to do.
Iāll bend the tree down and let you down by it.ā
I donāt know much about the letting down;
But once I felt ground with my stocking feet
And the world came revolving back to me,
I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers,
Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off.
My brother said: āDonāt you weigh anything?
Try to weigh something next time, so you wonāt
Be run off with by birch trees into space.ā
It wasnāt my not weighing anything
So much as my not knowing anythingā ā
My brother had been nearer right before.
I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heartā ānor need,
That I can see. The mindā āis not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mindā ā
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.
Nothing to say to all those marriages!
She had made three herself to three of his.
The score was even for them, three to three.
But come to die she found she cared so much:
She thought of children in a burial row;
Three children in a burial row were sad.
One manās three women in a burial row
Somehow made her impatient with the man.
And so she said to Laban, āYou have done
A good deal right; donāt do the last thing wrong.
Donāt make me lie with those two other women.ā
Laban said, No, he would not make her lie
With anyone but that she had a mind to,
If that was how she felt, of course, he said.
She went her way. But Laban having caught
This glimpse of lingering person in Eliza,
And anxious to make all he could of it
With something he remembered in himself,
Tried to think how he could exceed his promise,
And give good measure to the dead, though thankless.
If that was how she felt, he kept repeating.
His first thought under pressure was a grave
In a new boughten grave plot by herself,
Under he didnāt care how great a stone:
Heād sell a yoke of steers to pay for it.
And werenāt there special cemetery flowers,
That, once grief sets to growing, grief may rest:
The flowers will go on with grief awhile,
And no one seem neglecting or neglected?
A prudent grief will not despise such aids.
He thought of evergreen and everlasting.
And then he had a thought worth many of these.
Somewhere must be the grave of the young boy
Who married her for playmate more than helpmate,
And sometimes laughed at what it was between them.
How would she like to sleep her last with him?
Where was his grave? Did Laban know his name?
He found the grave a town or two away,
The headstone cut with John, Beloved Husband,
Beside it room reserved, the say a sisterās,
A never-married sisterās of that husband,
Whether Eliza would be welcome there.
The dead was bound to silence: ask the sister.
So Laban saw the sister, and, saying nothing
Of where Eliza wanted not to lie,
And who had thought to lay her with her first love,
Begged simply for the grave. The sisterās face
Fell all in wrinkles of responsibility.
She wanted to do right. Sheād have to think.
Laban was old and poor, yet seemed to care;
And she was old and poorā ābut she cared, too.
They sat. She cast one dull, old look at him,
Then turned him out to go on other errands
She said he might attend to in the village,
While she made up her mind how much she caredā ā
And how much Laban caredā āand why he cared,
(She made shrewd eyes to see where he came in.)
Sheād looked Eliza up her second time,
A widow at her second husbandās grave,
And offered her a home to rest awhile
Before she went the poor manās widowās way,
Housekeeping for the next man out of wedlock.
She and Eliza had been friends through all.
Who was she to judge marriage in a world
Whose Bibleās so confused in marriage counsel?
The sister had not come across this Laban;
A decent product of lifeās ironing-out;
She must not keep him waiting. Time would press
Between the death day and the funeral day.
So when she saw him coming in the street
She hurried her decision to be ready
To meet him with his answer at the door.
Laban had known about what it would be
From the way she had set her poor old mouth,
To do, as she had put it, what was right.
She gave it through the screen door closed between them:
āNo, not with John. There wouldnāt be no sense.
Elizaās had too many other men.ā
Laban was forced to fall back on his plan
To buy Eliza a plot to lie alone in:
Which gives him for himself a choice of lots
When his time comes to die and settle down.
Circa 1922.
I staid the night for shelter at a farm
Behind the mountain, with a mother and son,
Two old-believers. They did all the talking.
Mother. Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits
She could call up to pass a winter evening,
But wonāt, should be burned at the stake or something.
Summoning spirits isnāt āButton, button,
Whoās got the button,ā I would have them know.
Son. Mother can make a common table rear
And kick with two legs like an army mule.
Mother. And when Iāve done it, what good have I done?
Rather than tip a
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