THE WOOD-PILE
by: Robert Frost (1874-1963)
- UT walking
in the frozen swamp one grey day
- I paused and said, "I will turn back from here.
- No, I will go on farther--and we shall see."
- The hard snow held me, save where now and then
- One foot went down. The view was all in lines
- Straight up and down of tall slim trees
- Too much alike to mark or name a place by
- So as to say for certain I was here
- Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
- A small bird flew before me. He was careful
- To put a tree between us when he lighted,
- And say no word to tell me who he was
- Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
- He thought that I was after him for a feather--
- The white one in his tail; like one who takes
- Everything said as personal to himself.
- One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
- And then there was a pile of wood for which
- I forgot him and let his little fear
- Carry him off the way I might have gone,
- Without so much as wishing him good-night.
- He went behind it to make his last stand.
- It was a cord of maple, cut and split
- And piled--and measured, four by four by eight.
- And not another like it could I see.
- No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
- And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
- Or even last year's or the year's before.
- The wood was grey and the bark warping off it
- And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
- Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
- What held it though on one side was a tree
- Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
- These latter about to fall. I thought that only
- Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
- Could so forget his handiwork on which
- He spent himself, the labour of his axe,
- And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
- To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
- With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
"The Wood Pile" is reprinted
from North of Boston. Robert Frost. New York: Henry Holt,
1915. |
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