North of Boston Robert Frost (desktop ebook reader TXT) đ
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- Author: Robert Frost
Book online «North of Boston Robert Frost (desktop ebook reader TXT) đ». Author Robert Frost
And presto, theyâre up all around you as thick
And hard to explain as a conjurorâs trick.â
âIt must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.
And after all really theyâre ebony skinned:
The blueâs but a mist from the breath of the wind,
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned.â
âDoes Mortenson know what he has, do you think?â
âHe may and not care and so leave the chewink
To gather them for himâ âyou know what he is.
He wonât make the fact that theyâre rightfully his
An excuse for keeping us other folk out.â
âI wonder you didnât see Loren about.â
âThe best of it was that I did. Do you know,
I was just getting through what the field had to show
And over the wall and into the road,
When who should come by, with a democrat-load
Of all the young chattering Lorens alive,
But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive.â
âHe saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?â
âHe just kept nodding his head up and down.
You know how politely he always goes by.
But he thought a big thoughtâ âI could tell by his eyeâ â
Which being expressed, might be this in effect:
âI have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,
To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.âââ
âHeâs a thriftier person than some I could name.â
âHe seems to be thrifty; and hasnât he need,
With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed?
He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say,
Like birds. They store a great many away.
They eat them the year round, and those they donât eat
They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet.â
âWho cares what they say? Itâs a nice way to live,
Just taking what Nature is willing to give,
Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow.â
âI wish you had seen his perpetual bowâ â
And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned,
And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.â
âI wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
I met them one day and each had a flower
Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower;
Some strange kindâ âthey told me it hadnât a name.â
âIâve told you how once not long after we came,
I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth
By going to him of all people on earth
To ask if he knew any fruit to be had
For the picking. The rascal, he said heâd be glad
To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.
There had been some berriesâ âbut those were all gone.
He didnât say where they had been. He went on:
âIâm sureâ âIâm sureââ âas polite as could be.
He spoke to his wife in the door, âLet me see,
Mame, we donât know any good berrying place?â
It was all he could do to keep a straight face.
âIf he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him,
Heâll find heâs mistaken. See here, for a whim,
Weâll pick in the Mortensonsâ pasture this year.
Weâll go in the morning, that is, if itâs clear,
And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet.
Itâs so long since I picked I almost forget
How we used to pick berries: we took one look round,
Then sank out of sight like trolls underground,
And saw nothing more of each other, or heard,
Unless when you said I was keeping a bird
Away from its nest, and I said it was you.
âWell, one of us is.â For complaining it flew
Around and around us. And then for a while
We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile,
And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout
Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out,
For when you made answer, your voice was as low
As talkingâ âyou stood up beside me, you know.â
âWe shaânât have the place to ourselves to enjoyâ â
Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy.
Theyâll be there tomorrow, or even to-night.
They wonât be too friendlyâ âthey may be politeâ â
To people they look on as having no right
To pick where theyâre picking. But we wonât complain.
You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain,
The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,
Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.â
I didnât make you know how glad I was
To have you come and camp here on our land.
I promised myself to get down some day
And see the way you lived, but I donât know!
With a houseful of hungry men to feed
I guess youâd find.â ââ ⊠It seems to me
I canât express my feelings any more
Than I can raise my voice or want to lift
My hand (oh, I can lift it when I have to).
Did ever you feel so? I hope you never.
Itâs got so I donât even know for sure
Whether I am glad, sorry, or anything.
Thereâs nothing but a voice-like left inside
That seems to tell me how I ought to feel,
And would feel if I wasnât all gone wrong.
You take the lake. I look and look at it.
I see itâs a fair, pretty sheet of water.
I stand and make myself repeat out loud
The advantages it has, so long and narrow,
Like a deep piece of some old running river
Cut short off at both ends. It lies five miles
Straight away through the mountain notch
From the sink window where I wash the plates,
And all our storms come up toward the house,
Drawing the slow waves whiter and whiter and whiter.
It took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuit
To step outdoors and take the water dazzle
A sunny morning, or take the rising wind
About my face and body and through my wrapper,
When a storm threatened from the Dragonâs Den,
And a cold chill shivered across the lake.
I see itâs a fair, pretty sheet of water,
Our Willoughby! How did you hear of it?
I expect, though, everyoneâs heard of it.
In a book about ferns? Listen to that!
You let things more like feathers regulate
Your going and coming. And you like
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