Robert Frost

"Don't let him cut my hand off— The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already.

Out, Out —, 1916

A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.

Letter to Louis Untermeyer (January 1, 1916), 1916

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken, st. 4, 1916

It is only a moment here and a moment there that the greatest writer has. Some cognizance of the fact must be taken in your teaching.

Letter to Sidney Cox (January 2, 1915), 1915

Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.

Letter to Louis Untermeyer (July 8, 1915), 1915

He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: "What is it you see From up there always?—for I want to know."

Home Burial, 1914

He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Mending Wall, l. 41, 1914

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

Mending Wall, l. 1, 1914

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.

Mending Wall, l. 32, 1914

My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Mending Wall, l. 25, 1914

My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane.

My November Guest, 1913

Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise.

My November Guest, 1913

Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted gray Is silver now with clinging mist.

My November Guest, 1913

The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why.

My November Guest, 1913

I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Into My Own, st. 4, 1913