Synopses & Reviews
Robert Frost is widely known as the American bard of nature, pastoral life, and, as he titled one poem, "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things". No poet of the twentieth century examined with such range and depth the complex meaning of nature and country matters. A profound thinker about the importance of the human voice and the dramatic gestures of ordinary speech in the creation of meaning, Frost imbued his lyrics, sonnets, and dramatic verse narratives with both immediacy and immense subtlety. This volume presents Frost's first three books, A Boy's Will (1913), North of Boston (1914), and Mountain Interval (1916). These masterful and innovative collections contain some of Frost's best- known poems including, "Mowing", "Mending Wall", "After Apple Picking", "Home Burial", "The Oven Bird", "Birches", and "The Road Not Taken". There is also a selection of masterpieces from the early 1920s. Robert Faggen's Introduction and Notes reveal Frost's complex relation to modern and classical poetic traditions, his dialogue with science and philosophy, and his achievement of making each poem "a momentary stay against confusion".
Synopsis
Beloved American poet Robert Frost's first three books, in one collection This volume presents Frost's first three books, masterful and innovative collections that contain some of his best-known poems, including "Mowing," "Mending Wall," "After Apple-Picking," "Home Burial," "The Oven Bird," "Birches," and "The Road Not Taken."
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
This volume presents Frost’s first three books, masterful and innovative collections that contain some of his best-known poems, including "Mowing," "Mending Wall," "After Apple-Picking," "Home Burial," "The Oven Bird," "Birches," and "The Road Not Taken."
About the Author
Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874. When he was ten, his father died and he and his mother moved to New England. He attended school at Dartmouth and Harvard, worked in a mill, taught, and took up farming, before he moved to England, where his first books of poetry, A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), were published. North of Boston brought him recognition as the preeminent voice of New England and as one of America's major poets. In 1915 he returned to the United States and settled on a farm in New Hampshire. Four volumes of his poetry, New Hampshire (1923), Collected Poems (1930), A Further Range (1936), and A Witness Tree (1942) were all awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He died in 1963.
Table of Contents
Early Poems Introduction
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Texts
A BOY'S WILL
Into My Own
The youth is persuaded that he will be rather more than less himself for having forsworn the world.
Ghost House
He is happy in society of his choosing.
My November Guest
He is in love with being misunderstood.
Love and a Question
He is in doubt whether to admit real trouble to a place beside the hearth with love.
A Late Walk
He courts the autumnal mood.
Stars
There is no oversight of human affairs.
Storm Fear
He is afraid of his own isolation.
Wind and Window Flower
Out of the winter things he fashions a story of modern love.
To the Thawing Wind
He calls on change through the violence of the elements.
A Prayer in Spring
He discovers that the greatness of love lies not in forward-looking thoughts;
Flower-Gathering
nor yet in any spur it may be to ambition.
Rose Pogonias
He is no dissenter from the ritualism of nature;
Asking for Roses
nor from the ritualism of youth which is make-believe.
Waiting - Afield at Dusk
He arrives at the turn of the year.
In a Vale
Out of old longings he fashions a story.
A Dream Pang
He is shown by a dream how really well it is with him.
In Neglect
He is scornful of folk his scorn cannot reach.
The Vantage Point
And again scornful, but there is no one hurt.
Mowing
He takes up life simply with the small tasks.
Going for Water
Revelation
He resolves to become intelligible, at least to himself, since there is no help else;
The Trial by Existence
and to know definitely what he thinks about the soul;
In Equal Sacrifice
about love;
The Tuft of Flowers
about fellowship;
Spoils of the Dead
about death;
Pan with Us
about art (his own);
The Demiurge's Laugh
about science.
Now Close the Windows
It is time to make an end of speaking.
A Line-Storm Song
It is the autumnal mood with a difference.
October
He sees days slipping from him that were the best for what they were.
My Butterfly
There are things that can never be the same.
Reluctance
NORTH OF BOSTON
The Pasture
Mending Wall
The Death of the Hired Man
The Mountain
A Hundred Collars
Home Burial
The Black Cottage
Blueberries
A Servant to Servants
After Apple-Picking
The Code
The Generations of Men
The Housekeeper
The Fear
The Self-Seeker
The Wood-Pile
Good Hours
MOUNTAIN INTERVAL
The Road Not Taken
Christmas Trees
An Old Man's Winter Night
A Patch of Old Snow
In the Home Stretch
The Telephone
Meeting and Passing
Hyla Brook
The Oven Bird
Bond and Free
Birches
Pea Brush
Putting in the Seed
A Time to Talk
The Cow in Apple Time
An Encounter
Range-Finding
The Hill Wife:
I. Loneliness - Her Word
II. House Fear
III. The Smile - Her Word
IV. The Oft-Repeated Dream
V. The Impulse
The Bonfire
A Girl's Garden
The Exposed Nest
"Out, Out - "
Brown's Descent or the Willy-Nilly Slide
The Gum-Gatherer
The Line-Gang
The Vanishing Red
Snow
The Sound of the Trees
POEMS TO 1922 (Later published in New Hampshire)
A Star in a Stone-Boat
The Census-Taker
Maple
The Ax-Helve
The Grindstone
Paul's Wife
Wild Grapes
Place for a Third
Two Witches:
The Witch of Coöos
The Pauper Witch of Grafton
Fire and Ice
Dust of Snow
To E. T.
The Aim Was Song
For Once, Then, Something
Blue-Butterfly Day
The Onset
Good-by and Keep Cold
Not to Keep
A Brook in the City
Evening in a Sugar Orchard
The Valley's Singing Day
Misgiving
A Hillside Thaw
Plowmen
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
The Lockless Door
The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
Explanatory Notes
Index of Titles and First Lines