Quotes By Author: Robert Frost

“I could give all to Time except — exceptWhat I myself have held. But why declareThe things forbidden that while the Customs sleptI have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,And what I would not part with I have kept.”

“The TelephoneWhen I was just as far as I could walkFrom here todayThere was an hourAll stillWhen leaning with my head against a flowerI heard you talk.Don’t say I didn’t for I heard you sayYou spoke from that flower on the window sill-Do you remember what it was you said ”First tell me what it was you thought you heard.”Having found the flower and driven a bee awayI leaned my headAnd holding by the stalkI listened and I thought I caught the wordWhat was itDid you call me by my name Or did you saySomeone said “Come”I heard it as I bowed.”I may have thought as much but not aloud.’Well so I came.”

“Tree At My WindowTree at my window, window tree,My sash is lowered when night comes on;But let there never be curtain drawnBetween you and me.Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,And thing next most diffuse to cloud,Not all your light tongues talking aloudCould be profound.But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,And if you have seen me when I slept,You have seen me when I was taken and sweptAnd all but lost.That day she put our heads together,Fate had her imagination about her,Your head so much concerned with outer,Mine with inner, weather.”

“Keats mourned that the rainbow, which as a boy had been for him a magic thing, had lost its glory because the physicists had found it resulted merely from the refraction of the sunlight by the raindrops. Yet knowledge of its causation could not spoil the rainbow for me. I am sure that it is not given to man to be omniscient. There will always be something left to know, something to excite the imagination of the poet and those attuned to the great world in which they live (p. 64)”

“I would not come in.I meant not even if asked,And I hadn’t been.”

“Fireflies in the GardenBy Robert Frost 1874–1963 Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, And here on earth come emulating flies, That though they never equal stars in size, (And they were never really stars at heart) Achieve at times a very star-like start. Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.”

“INTO MY OWNOne 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. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land, Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. 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.”

“Acquainted with the NightI have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light.I have looked down the saddest city lane.I have passed by the watchman on his beatAnd dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.I have stood still and stopped the sound of feetWhen far away an interrupted cryCame over houses from another street,But not to call me back or say good-bye;And further still at an unearthly height,One luminary clock against the skyProclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.I have been one acquainted with the night.”

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningWhose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village, though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound’s the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.”

“I’d like to get away from earth awhileAnd then come back to it and begin over.May no fate wilfully misunderstand meAnd half grant what I wish and snatch me awayNot to return. Earth’s the right place for love:I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.”

“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.”