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Selected Poems
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Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.
We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.
We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published November 13, 1936
About the author
Robert Frost
841 books4,684 followersFlinty, moody, plainspoken and deep, Robert Frost was one of America's most popular 20th-century poets. Frost was farming in Derry, New Hampshire when, at the age of 38, he sold the farm, uprooted his family and moved to England, where he devoted himself to his poetry. His first two books of verse, A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), were immediate successes. In 1915 he returned to the United States and continued to write while living in New Hampshire and then Vermont. His pastoral images of apple trees and stone fences -- along with his solitary, man-of-few-words poetic voice -- helped define the modern image of rural New England. Frost's poems include "Mending Wall" ("Good fences make good neighbors"), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" ("Whose woods these are I think I know"), and perhaps his most famous work, "The Road Not Taken" ("Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- / I took the one less traveled by"). Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times: in 1924, 1931, 1937 and 1943. He also served as "Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress" from 1958-59; that position was renamed as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry (or simply Poet Laureate) in 1986.
Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy... Frost attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard, but did not graduate from either school... Frost preferred traditional rhyme and meter in poetry; his famous dismissal of free verse was, "I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down."
Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy... Frost attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard, but did not graduate from either school... Frost preferred traditional rhyme and meter in poetry; his famous dismissal of free verse was, "I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 296 reviews
March 2, 2018
I love this book. And I love the way in which Frost writes poetry.
The success of the poems resides in their ability to speak to the reader; they have a certain sense of universal quality as they evoke profound mental states. He does this through using objects, often natural ones, to describe a certain human emotion or feeling. A tree in the wind embodies indecision and the inability to move on. A road split in two represents a part of the human experience that I can now only think of in the terms Frost put them in.
I am, of course, referring to one of his most famous poems:
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
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 travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
I remember the first time I read those lines, I was wrought with regret: regret for a decision I had not yet made. And that bespeaks the power of these words. They are beyond time and place; they demonstrate the interconnectedness of all things: they strike directly at conformity. Memory and regret can be triggered by such a simple image, one that Frost has captured all so perfectly.
Although a modernist writer, Frost did not abandon all poetical tradition like his peers. His writing is a hybrid of new and old. The language is simple and direct, though it also carries with it the weight of the past. At times he writes in blank verse and at other times he experiments with form and style. For me this speaks of a certain sense of integrity; he was not quite ready to turn his back on generation, after generation, of poetical tradition: he used it to inform and improve his modern work. It also means that his poetry does not all feel the same; some poems are vastly different to each other. This meant that the collection stayed rather fresh even towards the end.
I read this book over a number of years. I first picked it up back in 2015 and I think my appreciation of Frost has only grown since. Whilst he is not my favourite poet, I certainly count him amongst my top five. I just love the way he uses the natural world.
The success of the poems resides in their ability to speak to the reader; they have a certain sense of universal quality as they evoke profound mental states. He does this through using objects, often natural ones, to describe a certain human emotion or feeling. A tree in the wind embodies indecision and the inability to move on. A road split in two represents a part of the human experience that I can now only think of in the terms Frost put them in.
I am, of course, referring to one of his most famous poems:
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
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 travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
I remember the first time I read those lines, I was wrought with regret: regret for a decision I had not yet made. And that bespeaks the power of these words. They are beyond time and place; they demonstrate the interconnectedness of all things: they strike directly at conformity. Memory and regret can be triggered by such a simple image, one that Frost has captured all so perfectly.
Although a modernist writer, Frost did not abandon all poetical tradition like his peers. His writing is a hybrid of new and old. The language is simple and direct, though it also carries with it the weight of the past. At times he writes in blank verse and at other times he experiments with form and style. For me this speaks of a certain sense of integrity; he was not quite ready to turn his back on generation, after generation, of poetical tradition: he used it to inform and improve his modern work. It also means that his poetry does not all feel the same; some poems are vastly different to each other. This meant that the collection stayed rather fresh even towards the end.
I read this book over a number of years. I first picked it up back in 2015 and I think my appreciation of Frost has only grown since. Whilst he is not my favourite poet, I certainly count him amongst my top five. I just love the way he uses the natural world.
July 17, 2020
The Selected Poems of Robert Frost, Robert Frost
Robert Frost, the quintessential poet of New England, was born in San Francisco in 1874. He was educated at Dartmouth College and Harvard University. Although he managed to support himself working solely as a poet for most of his life and holding various posts with a number of universities, as a young man he was employed as a bobbin boy in a mill, a cobbler, a schoolteacher, and a farmer. Frost, whose poetry focuses on natural images of New England, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times for: New Hampshire, Collected Poems, A Further Range, and A Witness Tree.
His works are noted for combining characteristics of both romanticism and modernism. He also wrote A Boy's Will, North of Boston, Mountain Interval, and The Gift Outright, among others. Frost married Elinor Miriam White in 1895, and they had six children--Elliott, Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie, and Elinor Bettina. He died in Boston in 1963.
"One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as it were, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I do not see why I should ever 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."
عنوانها: «بهترین اشعار رابرت فراست»؛ «گزینه اشعار رابرت فراست»؛ «راه ناپیموده»؛ تاریخ خوانش روز دوم ماه فوریه سال 2002 میلادی
عنوان: بهترین اشعار رابرت فراست؛ ترجمه فتحالله مجتبائی؛ زیرنظر سیروس پرهام؛ تهران، سخن؛ 1338؛ در 212ص؛ دوزبانه، فارسی انگلیسی؛
عنوان: گزینه اشعار رابرت فراست؛ شاعر: رابرت فراست؛ مترجم فتحالله مجتبائی؛ زیرنظر: سیروس پرهام؛ تهران: مروارید، 1380؛ در 221ص، مصور؛ شابک 9646026796؛ عنوان روی جلد گزیده اشعار رابرت فراست؛ موضوع شعر شاعران ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
عنوان: راه ناپیموده: گزیده ای از اشعار رابرت فراست و ویلیام وردزورث؛ ترجمه منظوم بهنام مقدم (م. رها)؛ تهران، جنگل، 1385؛ در 80ص؛ شابک 9648917671؛
رابرت فراست شاعر آمریکایی است که در این کتاب برگزیده ای از اشعار او به زبان اصلی همراه با ترجمه فارسی فراهم آمده است؛ کتاب دارای سی و نه قطعه شعر است که همراه با معرفی شاعر در مقدمه، منتشر شده است
آغازین کتاب با عنوان «راهی که اختیار نکرد»؛
The Road Not Taken
نام دارد
در جنگلی زرد، دو راه از هم جدا میشوند، و دریغا، من نمیتوانستم که یک مسافر باشم؛ و از هر دو راه سفر کنم؛ مدتی بر جای ایستادم و تا چشمم میدید، به آنجایی که؛ یکی از دو راه در میان بوته زارها میپیچید، نگریستم؛ سپس راه دیگر را در پیش گرفتم، که به همان خوبی بود، و شاید شایستگی بیشتری هم داشت؛ زیرا گیاه بسیار بر آن روییده بود، و میبایست که پایکوب شود ...؛
رابرت فراست
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Robert Frost, the quintessential poet of New England, was born in San Francisco in 1874. He was educated at Dartmouth College and Harvard University. Although he managed to support himself working solely as a poet for most of his life and holding various posts with a number of universities, as a young man he was employed as a bobbin boy in a mill, a cobbler, a schoolteacher, and a farmer. Frost, whose poetry focuses on natural images of New England, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times for: New Hampshire, Collected Poems, A Further Range, and A Witness Tree.
His works are noted for combining characteristics of both romanticism and modernism. He also wrote A Boy's Will, North of Boston, Mountain Interval, and The Gift Outright, among others. Frost married Elinor Miriam White in 1895, and they had six children--Elliott, Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie, and Elinor Bettina. He died in Boston in 1963.
"One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as it were, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I do not see why I should ever 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."
عنوانها: «بهترین اشعار رابرت فراست»؛ «گزینه اشعار رابرت فراست»؛ «راه ناپیموده»؛ تاریخ خوانش روز دوم ماه فوریه سال 2002 میلادی
عنوان: بهترین اشعار رابرت فراست؛ ترجمه فتحالله مجتبائی؛ زیرنظر سیروس پرهام؛ تهران، سخن؛ 1338؛ در 212ص؛ دوزبانه، فارسی انگلیسی؛
عنوان: گزینه اشعار رابرت فراست؛ شاعر: رابرت فراست؛ مترجم فتحالله مجتبائی؛ زیرنظر: سیروس پرهام؛ تهران: مروارید، 1380؛ در 221ص، مصور؛ شابک 9646026796؛ عنوان روی جلد گزیده اشعار رابرت فراست؛ موضوع شعر شاعران ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
عنوان: راه ناپیموده: گزیده ای از اشعار رابرت فراست و ویلیام وردزورث؛ ترجمه منظوم بهنام مقدم (م. رها)؛ تهران، جنگل، 1385؛ در 80ص؛ شابک 9648917671؛
رابرت فراست شاعر آمریکایی است که در این کتاب برگزیده ای از اشعار او به زبان اصلی همراه با ترجمه فارسی فراهم آمده است؛ کتاب دارای سی و نه قطعه شعر است که همراه با معرفی شاعر در مقدمه، منتشر شده است
آغازین کتاب با عنوان «راهی که اختیار نکرد»؛
The Road Not Taken
نام دارد
در جنگلی زرد، دو راه از هم جدا میشوند، و دریغا، من نمیتوانستم که یک مسافر باشم؛ و از هر دو راه سفر کنم؛ مدتی بر جای ایستادم و تا چشمم میدید، به آنجایی که؛ یکی از دو راه در میان بوته زارها میپیچید، نگریستم؛ سپس راه دیگر را در پیش گرفتم، که به همان خوبی بود، و شاید شایستگی بیشتری هم داشت؛ زیرا گیاه بسیار بر آن روییده بود، و میبایست که پایکوب شود ...؛
رابرت فراست
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
March 12, 2022
Frost and Dickinson are my favorite American poets. Unfortunately for Frost, his poems have been regularly and prematurely assigned in American schools and too frequently anthologized for many to dismiss him as a"famous" poet with rhymes that can appeal to adolescents. Nothing further from the truth unless he is seriously misread.
I keep coming back to his poems always to discover something new about the humanity and myself. There are too many favorites to quote here, but I'll select four and I'm not going to feel intimidated that these can also be found in just about any anthology of English-language poems. :-) Except for one (my all-time favorite), it was a tantalizing choice.
"Stopping by Woods" is probably my favorite and I was super excited when I dug out a rarely known fact that it was his own favorite too (he always declined to indulge in "favorite poems" publicly). Coincidently it was first published almost on this day, that is, on the day which would be tomorrow (7 March) in 1923 in The New Republic.
ETA as I couldn't insert these links in the comment section.
Here is Frost reciting some of his poems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YekEy...
Frost recites "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening":
https://vimeo.com/54226370
American youth have a tremendous bias regarding Frost’s poems. They’ve always been told that Frost is a poet of rural life, a kind of pastoralist. A model American. Then you show them that Frost really is an American, only of a completely different variety than they had assumed, that Frost is not a textbook poet but a phenomenon much more profound and scary.This came from Joseph Brodsky who championed him, and he also said this:
Frost made an incredible impression on me. Only a few poets have been so cardinally distinct for me, such unique spirits. These are Frost, Tsvetaeva, Cavafy, and Auden. Of course, there are other marvelous poets as well, but for uniqueness of soul—it’s these four. This is what you look for in poetry. (In the same book of conversations, he also mentioned Rilke, Akhmatova, and Pasternak, among others, as the poets he admired, though repeatedly kept turning back to Frost.)I would, of course, recommend the complete collection of his poems, but wanted to list this one as it has some of the most brilliant essays about his poetry from his fellow poets, Auden and Day-Lewis. It was published in 1935, attesting to the early recognition of his unique modernism that alas! somehow got lost in the later, grossly trivialized, reputation as a "textbook poet".
I keep coming back to his poems always to discover something new about the humanity and myself. There are too many favorites to quote here, but I'll select four and I'm not going to feel intimidated that these can also be found in just about any anthology of English-language poems. :-) Except for one (my all-time favorite), it was a tantalizing choice.
"Stopping by Woods" is probably my favorite and I was super excited when I dug out a rarely known fact that it was his own favorite too (he always declined to indulge in "favorite poems" publicly). Coincidently it was first published almost on this day, that is, on the day which would be tomorrow (7 March) in 1923 in The New Republic.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningMy late autumn/early winter, right when the apple harvesting season is over, usually starts with the next poem - oh, no, it's not just a rustic seasonal poem; depending on how you read it, it can take us to some "scary" dark life/death corners of our existence - Brodsky was right.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of 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.
After Apple-PickingFrost's ambivalence, akin to philosophical aphorisms that are artfully veiled under the simplicity of words, images and, yes, rhyme and rhythm, never ceases to inspire an awe in me. Like in his longish "Mending Wall" and shortish (often grossly misquoted) "Fire and Ice".
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
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,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
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 offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
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 neighbors.’
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
ETA as I couldn't insert these links in the comment section.
Here is Frost reciting some of his poems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YekEy...
Frost recites "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening":
https://vimeo.com/54226370
September 19, 2017
It is not without excellent reason that Robert Frost is considered one of the greatest American poets of the century.
What impresses me most about his poems is the usage of simple and colloquial words to portray ordinary, everyday incidents that have a deeper, denser meaning hidden within. Clear and conversational lines conceal subtle philosophies on life and complex social issues at their core. Also, I find myself completely drawn to the stunning picture he paints with his expressive poems on nature and those beautiful, beautiful illustrations of the New England seasons and scenery.
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", "The Road Not Taken" and "Fire and Ice" are some of Frost's most read and loved poems. But along with these, and many more of course, one that really stands out as a personal favorite is "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
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
What impresses me most about his poems is the usage of simple and colloquial words to portray ordinary, everyday incidents that have a deeper, denser meaning hidden within. Clear and conversational lines conceal subtle philosophies on life and complex social issues at their core. Also, I find myself completely drawn to the stunning picture he paints with his expressive poems on nature and those beautiful, beautiful illustrations of the New England seasons and scenery.
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", "The Road Not Taken" and "Fire and Ice" are some of Frost's most read and loved poems. But along with these, and many more of course, one that really stands out as a personal favorite is "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
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
September 11, 2018
بگذار که اشکال ابرها در هم بپیچند!
رابرت فراست
رابرت فراست
June 9, 2019
Absolutely beautiful edition of Robert Frost's work. The illustrations aren't exactly what I would call beautiful but they do add a bit of ambience to the wonderful poetry printed within this book. Beautiful hardback edition.
This is a great addition to anyone's library!
This is a great addition to anyone's library!
March 1, 2017
Robert Graves led a long and productive life – despite being reported as killed in action at the battle of the Somme, he lived until 1985 and produced other successful and well-known works including ‘Goodbye to All That’ (his autobiography) and the ‘I, Claudius’ novels (written as an autobiography Roman Emperor Claudius) – which were then later successfully dramatised for television.
After having been deeply impressed and affected by reading the war poetry of Owen and Sassoon, this collection of Graves output concerning the Great War and/or written at the time of the war or after, unfortunately came as something of a disappointment. I found it difficult to connect with and take much away from most of these poems. I found the vast majority of the works here overwhelmingly esoteric, infused as they are with metaphor, simile and analogy – and as such somewhat impenetrable. Perhaps it was my level of understanding, but essentially I don’t take much away from any literature that has to be actively studied to be understood? Whilst I can appreciate that there is music and lyricism in the words and in the structure – but as to meaning, that was more often than not sadly often lost on me as being impenetrable.
The majority of the poems here seem to those that just happen to be written at the time of the Great War and for the most part have love as their central subject along with references to the classics, mythology and biblical stories? Not that poetry written by a poet at that time had to be about war necessarily…clearly Graves is seemingly a very different kind of poet.
This is a large collection of works and as such there are some poems that shine out for me in and amongst (as per below). It is just that these poems are overwhelmed by and hard to find amongst the ones that held little or no meaning for me.
Armistice Day, 1918
The Patchwork Quilt
At Seventy Two
The Sweet Shop Round the Corner
Recalling War
The Untidy Man
A Dead Boche
Warning to Children
Call it a Good Marriage
The Suicide in the Copse
The Last Day of Leave
Two Fusiliers
Whilst I understand and appreciate that this is essentially perhaps another kind of poetry or at least drawing overwhelmingly from different inspirations and subject matter – ultimately for me, this collection lacks the power and impact of his then contemporaries, Owen and Sassoon.
After having been deeply impressed and affected by reading the war poetry of Owen and Sassoon, this collection of Graves output concerning the Great War and/or written at the time of the war or after, unfortunately came as something of a disappointment. I found it difficult to connect with and take much away from most of these poems. I found the vast majority of the works here overwhelmingly esoteric, infused as they are with metaphor, simile and analogy – and as such somewhat impenetrable. Perhaps it was my level of understanding, but essentially I don’t take much away from any literature that has to be actively studied to be understood? Whilst I can appreciate that there is music and lyricism in the words and in the structure – but as to meaning, that was more often than not sadly often lost on me as being impenetrable.
The majority of the poems here seem to those that just happen to be written at the time of the Great War and for the most part have love as their central subject along with references to the classics, mythology and biblical stories? Not that poetry written by a poet at that time had to be about war necessarily…clearly Graves is seemingly a very different kind of poet.
This is a large collection of works and as such there are some poems that shine out for me in and amongst (as per below). It is just that these poems are overwhelmed by and hard to find amongst the ones that held little or no meaning for me.
Armistice Day, 1918
The Patchwork Quilt
At Seventy Two
The Sweet Shop Round the Corner
Recalling War
The Untidy Man
A Dead Boche
Warning to Children
Call it a Good Marriage
The Suicide in the Copse
The Last Day of Leave
Two Fusiliers
Whilst I understand and appreciate that this is essentially perhaps another kind of poetry or at least drawing overwhelmingly from different inspirations and subject matter – ultimately for me, this collection lacks the power and impact of his then contemporaries, Owen and Sassoon.
May 6, 2015
مرغـک
دلم می خواسـته است که مرغـک دور شـود
.و تمـام روز را در کنـار خانه ی من آواز نـخـواند
و هـنگامی که چنان می شد که گوئی به تنـگ آمده ام
.از بیرونِ در ، دسـتـها را به هم زده ام تا او را برانم
،عـیـب بایستی که در من هـم بوده باشد
.و مرغـک را برای آوازش نمی توان ملامـت کرد
و بی شــک دلیل بر وجود عـیـبی است
.هــر آوازی را خـاموش خـواسـتن
نیمه انقلاب
.من طـرفـدار نیمـه انقـلابم
مشـکلِ انقـلاب تمـام
(از هر عضو سرشناس انجمن «گل سرخ و صلیب» بپرسید )
.این اسـت که باز هــمـان طـبقه را دوباره بالا می آورد
کارگزاران اعدام های ماهرانه
از هـمین روی تصـمیم می گیرند که تا نیمه های راه پیش بروند
.و هـمانجا توقف کنند
،آری ، انقـلاب مرهــم بی ماننـدی است
.اما باید فقـط نصـف آن مصـرف شود
دلم می خواسـته است که مرغـک دور شـود
.و تمـام روز را در کنـار خانه ی من آواز نـخـواند
و هـنگامی که چنان می شد که گوئی به تنـگ آمده ام
.از بیرونِ در ، دسـتـها را به هم زده ام تا او را برانم
،عـیـب بایستی که در من هـم بوده باشد
.و مرغـک را برای آوازش نمی توان ملامـت کرد
و بی شــک دلیل بر وجود عـیـبی است
.هــر آوازی را خـاموش خـواسـتن
نیمه انقلاب
.من طـرفـدار نیمـه انقـلابم
مشـکلِ انقـلاب تمـام
(از هر عضو سرشناس انجمن «گل سرخ و صلیب» بپرسید )
.این اسـت که باز هــمـان طـبقه را دوباره بالا می آورد
کارگزاران اعدام های ماهرانه
از هـمین روی تصـمیم می گیرند که تا نیمه های راه پیش بروند
.و هـمانجا توقف کنند
،آری ، انقـلاب مرهــم بی ماننـدی است
.اما باید فقـط نصـف آن مصـرف شود
June 27, 2019
Free download available at Project Gutenberg
I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and it will be published by Project Gutenberg.
CONTENTS
I
THE PASTURE
THE COW IN APPLE-TIME
THE RUNAWAY
II
AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT
HOME BURIAL
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS
THE SELF-SEEKER
THE HILL WIFE
"OUT, OUT. . ."
III
PUTTING IN THE SEED
GOING FOR WATER
MOWING
IV
AFTER APPLE-PICKING
BIRCHES
THE GUM-GATHERER
THE MOUNTAIN
THE TUFT OF FLOWERS
MENDING WALL
AN ENCOUNTER
THE WOOD-PILE
V
SNOW
IN THE HOME STRETCH
VI
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
THE OVEN BIRD
A VANTAGE POINT
THE SOUND OF TREES
HYLA BROOK
MY NOVEMBER GUEST
RANGE-FINDING
OCTOBER
TO THE THAWING WIND
VII
A TIME TO TALK
THE CODE
A HUNDRED COLLARS
BLUEBERRIES
BROWN'S DESCENT
VIII
REVELATION
STORM-FEAR
BOND AND FREE
FLOWER-GATHERING
RELUCTANCE
INTO MY OWN
I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and it will be published by Project Gutenberg.
CONTENTS
I
THE PASTURE
THE COW IN APPLE-TIME
THE RUNAWAY
II
AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT
HOME BURIAL
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS
THE SELF-SEEKER
THE HILL WIFE
"OUT, OUT. . ."
III
PUTTING IN THE SEED
GOING FOR WATER
MOWING
IV
AFTER APPLE-PICKING
BIRCHES
THE GUM-GATHERER
THE MOUNTAIN
THE TUFT OF FLOWERS
MENDING WALL
AN ENCOUNTER
THE WOOD-PILE
V
SNOW
IN THE HOME STRETCH
VI
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
THE OVEN BIRD
A VANTAGE POINT
THE SOUND OF TREES
HYLA BROOK
MY NOVEMBER GUEST
RANGE-FINDING
OCTOBER
TO THE THAWING WIND
VII
A TIME TO TALK
THE CODE
A HUNDRED COLLARS
BLUEBERRIES
BROWN'S DESCENT
VIII
REVELATION
STORM-FEAR
BOND AND FREE
FLOWER-GATHERING
RELUCTANCE
INTO MY OWN
November 6, 2020
A couple months ago I read a collection of E.E. Cummings poems and I mentioned how my Grammy had seemed surprised by my interest in the poet. She said, she just thought Robert Frost would be more my style (her favorite). And, now we're here.
This collection is small and compact and I don't know how many poems it's missing from being a complete collection, but I can tell you with almost upmost certainty I will not be exploring a full collection.
It feels wrong to give this book 1 star, I mean it's Robert Frost! We learn about him in school, we're taught to think of him as something great- at least I was. But, if we're being completely honest I was just so bored. I most definitely preferred the shorter poems, as the longer ones would take me pages to complete and I would lose all interest in the story. Most of the time I didn't have much interest at all.
Prior to reading this book I knew two of the poems in the this collection (The Road Less Traveled and Fire & Ice). After reading through the whole collection I can say they're still my favorites. Actually Fire and Ice comes in first (I like the language. I liked the whole I'd chose plan A, but I mean plan B could also work-no commitment to one plan thing a bit less). As for the Road Less Traveled by, I like that quote, but even that poem just seemed like too many words then what we needed. 🤷🏻♀️
I don't know. I'm not saying Frost isn't an important or talented poet, but he's just not my kind of poet. If I had explored his work in an academic setting, with lectures and discussion maybe my vote could be swayed, but also maybe not.
This collection is small and compact and I don't know how many poems it's missing from being a complete collection, but I can tell you with almost upmost certainty I will not be exploring a full collection.
It feels wrong to give this book 1 star, I mean it's Robert Frost! We learn about him in school, we're taught to think of him as something great- at least I was. But, if we're being completely honest I was just so bored. I most definitely preferred the shorter poems, as the longer ones would take me pages to complete and I would lose all interest in the story. Most of the time I didn't have much interest at all.
Prior to reading this book I knew two of the poems in the this collection (The Road Less Traveled and Fire & Ice). After reading through the whole collection I can say they're still my favorites. Actually Fire and Ice comes in first (I like the language. I liked the whole I'd chose plan A, but I mean plan B could also work-no commitment to one plan thing a bit less). As for the Road Less Traveled by, I like that quote, but even that poem just seemed like too many words then what we needed. 🤷🏻♀️
I don't know. I'm not saying Frost isn't an important or talented poet, but he's just not my kind of poet. If I had explored his work in an academic setting, with lectures and discussion maybe my vote could be swayed, but also maybe not.
November 4, 2020
Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about—
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.
On snow and sand and turf, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world’s embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be.
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.
Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius’ disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight,
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.
His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.
January 1, 2017
I enjoyed the themes rather than the actual poetry. Frost seems to write poems made to be dissected in English classes. Oftentimes they are set up more as short stories, heavy on the dialogue, than poems. In fact, not that I'm a poetry expert, I could not detect what exactly made some of these poems verse rather than just spaced-out prose. I had a difficult time understanding a lot of these poems, but there were some that were really lovely. I'd be interested in rereading this collection in the future, but not picking up any more of Frost's poetry.
May 16, 2013
Since I was a little girl, Frost could do no wrong. He still can't. The cadence of his lines, the lucidity of his poetry, always transports me. I'm a little upset that my edition isn't listed here on GR though. Mine has quite a few more poems from his earlier and later life.
February 23, 2020
Highly enjoyable. Have to admit more a fan of the shorter poems than long, but there are exceptions. Beautiful
February 8, 2024
I didn't enjoy these. I should have. I also know I don't like blank verse.
April 25, 2021
This is a book I will read again and again. Somewhere along the way (probably that semester of poetry at university) I learned that the sophisticated individual gains great pleasure looking down the nose at the simple ramblings of Mr Frost. Well, this peasant disagrees.
July 30, 2022
“I had not taken the first step in knowledge:
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to do with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart— nor need
That I can see. The mind—is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind—
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.”
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to do with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart— nor need
That I can see. The mind—is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind—
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.”
February 17, 2023
Beautiful edition of a selection of Frost’s elegant poetry. Fall River Press has produced a gorgeous series of classic collectible volumes. I have a few others in this series, but Barnes & Noble has been sold out of the ones I have left to obtain.
January 15, 2010
I’d like to like Graves’s poems: his surefooted defiance of Modernist convention is the kind of sacred cowtipping that usually shows better over time. Graves was badly off in his gamble though. Certain free verse was a fad, and the Pound/Stein school would go the way of cocktails and the Charleston, he willfully closed himself off from the main creative seam of 20th-century poetics, building his own house on flat metrical sand. Despite its intellectual intensities, Graves’s poems straitjacket themselves in a formal wrapper that it’s hard for most modern readers to see their way around, sounding more like brainy oddities with a Victorian comic-verse twist than a daring riposte to Modernist poetics. Maybe he only wanted the few to find him, or maybe his sensibility was best pitched backwards, towards the Romans and Greeks and the Welsh Fusiliers that paid the bills on Majorca. Still, if Graves was “wrong” about modern poetry, he was wrong in a cranky, mad-uncle sort of way completely his own, as much a part of the century as, well, cocktails or the Charleston.
January 26, 2009
Drama: awesome. Form: pleasurable. Theme: Got a little fed up with all that personifying nature/alackadaying that nature can't be personified. Here's the best antidote:
It's a strange courage
you give me, ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
I
Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze
that reflects neither my face nor any inner part
of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing.
II
Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses
you in its own light.
Be not chimera of morning,
Half-man, half-star.
Be not an intelligence,
Like a widow's bird
Or an old horse.
WALLACE STEVENS
Nuances of a Theme by Williams
It's a strange courage
you give me, ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
I
Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze
that reflects neither my face nor any inner part
of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing.
II
Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses
you in its own light.
Be not chimera of morning,
Half-man, half-star.
Be not an intelligence,
Like a widow's bird
Or an old horse.
WALLACE STEVENS
Nuances of a Theme by Williams
May 2, 2018
I had to push through the initial third of the book as I found the poems generally uninteresting. As Graves sloughed off the stylistic conventions of a past era I felt more engaged with his imagery, some of which is striking, but it felt too little and too fleeting. Whilst this was mildly disappointing, I'm not put off from possibly exploring his later poetry, though I won't be actively seeking it out any time soon. I still love his historical fiction, though.
February 6, 2015
Poetry is not really my thing but I much more prefer Poe over this very nature based stuff. Fire & Ice is still my favorite of Frost's though.
November 29, 2016
we make ourselves a place apart / behind light words that tease and flout / but oh, the agitated heart / till someone find us really out // 'Revelation'
November 9, 2022
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not left fall.
Frost’s poetry has been steadily refined with age. Though his earlier poems—and even some in A Boy’s Will—present a boring, even mindless formalism, he has been able to harness an elegant poetic voice in vernacular language that has discreet beauty and philosophical simplicity.
Poems from North of Boston or Mountain Interval showcase the poet at his best: every line is praise for the simple things in life and a capturing of their beauty. Various poems, some written like short stories in blank verse, show the poet’s imagination and constant sense of awe towards anything human. This view, so simply yet carefully expressed, is enough to reconsider the sublime of daily life.
December 25, 2023
The first book of winter❄️
3.5
A Cloud Shadow
“A breeze discovered my open book
And began to flutter the leaves to look
For a poem there used to be on Spring.
I tried to tell her “There’s no such thing!”
For whom would a poem on Spring be by?
The breeze disdained to make reply;
And a cloud shadow crossed her face
For fear I would make her miss the place.”
3.5
A Cloud Shadow
“A breeze discovered my open book
And began to flutter the leaves to look
For a poem there used to be on Spring.
I tried to tell her “There’s no such thing!”
For whom would a poem on Spring be by?
The breeze disdained to make reply;
And a cloud shadow crossed her face
For fear I would make her miss the place.”
February 26, 2023
Beautiful illustrations. Beautiful poetry.
Took me nearly two years to finish… not sure reading a poetry book is for me.
Took me nearly two years to finish… not sure reading a poetry book is for me.
February 5, 2018
Well, this is a lovely collection of poems to read slowly, savoring the ones that just hit you as "special." The book even smells good, weird as that may sound. The pages just have this perfect "book smell" that made picking up this book even better.
There are definitely some good poems in here, like the classic "Birches," "Mending Wall," "Design," and "After Apple-Picking", and there are some lesser-known ones I discovered I really liked as well--"Snow Dust,""Evening in a Sugar Orchard," and "Going for Water."
Plus, while some poems celebrated winter, a lot of the other poems gave me a wonderful hope for spring. :) Which is EXCELLENT because, right now, there's like a -10 degree windchill outside my house.
However...my favorite poem of his, "Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening," was not included in this early collection of his--probably because that is a later poem. Still, I miss that one. That would make this collection complete.
Also, I don't think this can really be called an "illustrated edition," which implies that the illustrations are taken directly from the poems. Not true. While the illustrations are lovely, some are repeated, and most don't directly match the poems on the page with the pictures.
Still a lovely, lovely copy. I'd recommend to anyone who likes poetry, especially lovers of Robert Frost or nature.
There are definitely some good poems in here, like the classic "Birches," "Mending Wall," "Design," and "After Apple-Picking", and there are some lesser-known ones I discovered I really liked as well--"Snow Dust,""Evening in a Sugar Orchard," and "Going for Water."
Plus, while some poems celebrated winter, a lot of the other poems gave me a wonderful hope for spring. :) Which is EXCELLENT because, right now, there's like a -10 degree windchill outside my house.
However...my favorite poem of his, "Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening," was not included in this early collection of his--probably because that is a later poem. Still, I miss that one. That would make this collection complete.
Also, I don't think this can really be called an "illustrated edition," which implies that the illustrations are taken directly from the poems. Not true. While the illustrations are lovely, some are repeated, and most don't directly match the poems on the page with the pictures.
Still a lovely, lovely copy. I'd recommend to anyone who likes poetry, especially lovers of Robert Frost or nature.
June 15, 2011
Ah, Robert Frost: the man who convinced me that I hated poetry.
Years ago, I was assigned to read some of his poetry for school and, let's just say, I read them as if I was taking cough-syrup. (Note: Why, yes! I hate cough-syrup. I'll never forget the fateful night where I spit a mouthful of it across the bathroom. Good times...) Anyhow, so I didn't enjoy his poems because I was reading them with the wrong attitude &c. If Carl Sandburg hadn't come along later and shown me what a wonderful thing poetry can be, I don't know where I'd be today!
So, while rummaging around the attic the other month, I came across this hated volume of poetry and decided to give ol' Robert another try. Guess what? I didn't hate him! He'll never be my favourite poet, but I don't hate him. (I didn't really care for the selections from North of Boston, but the other ones were good! The poem "Birches" was my favourite, I think.)
Years ago, I was assigned to read some of his poetry for school and, let's just say, I read them as if I was taking cough-syrup. (Note: Why, yes! I hate cough-syrup. I'll never forget the fateful night where I spit a mouthful of it across the bathroom. Good times...) Anyhow, so I didn't enjoy his poems because I was reading them with the wrong attitude &c. If Carl Sandburg hadn't come along later and shown me what a wonderful thing poetry can be, I don't know where I'd be today!
So, while rummaging around the attic the other month, I came across this hated volume of poetry and decided to give ol' Robert another try. Guess what? I didn't hate him! He'll never be my favourite poet, but I don't hate him. (I didn't really care for the selections from North of Boston, but the other ones were good! The poem "Birches" was my favourite, I think.)
May 1, 2021
I don't really understand most types of poetry, hence the three star rating. However, there were a few poems that Robert Frost wrote that I actually enjoyed a bit because they made me think of things I remember from my childhood. Good memories filled with nostalgia, that I hadn't thought of in a while. So, for a poetry book, I supposed that this is really good in my opinion. However, there were a few poems that I was concerned about. One of them was called "Fear" or something like that, and it confused me and I thought it was odd and a bit dark. There were a few other poems like this, and so many others that I didn't understand. They had beautiful wording and in some cases, good rhyming, but the message was unclear to me or strange in a way that I didn't like. Over all though, I thought that many of the poems were interesting. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a poetry book to read for an English class. I wouldn't recommend it to others otherwise because I like fantasy and fiction better.
March 19, 2020
Something about Frost’s poems is comfortable, like coming home. I’m glad to own this little collection that holds some of my favorite works of his.
The melancholy of having to count souls
Where they grow fewer and fewer every year
Is extreme where they shrink to none at all.
It must be I want life to go on living.
- from The Census-Taker
I always find myself wanting to pore over his poems, to dissect them to find just how much they mean to me and what I take away from them. I spent some days in class doing just that - analyzing his poetry. He’s one of the greats for good reason, and I find myself loving his short prose with each new-to-me one I find.
One thing I noticed is his ability to depict fear and anxiety. Numerous pieces in this collection reflect those emotions and it feels like an echo to how many of us feel today. It speaks to the transcendence of his work that its impact is still felt so strongly.
The melancholy of having to count souls
Where they grow fewer and fewer every year
Is extreme where they shrink to none at all.
It must be I want life to go on living.
- from The Census-Taker
I always find myself wanting to pore over his poems, to dissect them to find just how much they mean to me and what I take away from them. I spent some days in class doing just that - analyzing his poetry. He’s one of the greats for good reason, and I find myself loving his short prose with each new-to-me one I find.
One thing I noticed is his ability to depict fear and anxiety. Numerous pieces in this collection reflect those emotions and it feels like an echo to how many of us feel today. It speaks to the transcendence of his work that its impact is still felt so strongly.
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