“Into My Own”
One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. […]
“The Star-Splitter”
“You know Orion always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, And rising on his hands, he looks in on me Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something I should have done by daylight, and indeed, After the ground is frozen, I should have done Before it froze, and a gust [...]
“Mending Wall”
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. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, [...]
“In Equal Sacrifice”
Thus of old the Douglas did: He left his land as he was bid With the royal heart of Robert the Bruce In a golden case with a golden lid, To carry the same to the Holy Land; By which we see and understand That that was the place to carry a heart At loyalty [...]
“Love and a Question”
A stranger came to the door at eve, And he spoke the bridegroom fair. He bore a green-white stick in his hand, And, for all burden, care. He asked with the eyes more than the lips For a shelter for the night, And he turned and looked at the road afar Without a window light. [...]
“Reluctance”
Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping [...]
“A Prayer in Spring”
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the [...]
“Education by Poetry”
Education by poetry is education by metaphor. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. “Education by Poetry” was a talk delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly of February 1931. [...]