A Boy's Will Quotes

“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.

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.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“Revelation


WE make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.

’Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“A Dream Pang
I HAD withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
‘I dare not—too far in his footsteps stray—
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But ’tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“Lovers, forget your love,
And list the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“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?”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“A Late Walk -
A Tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
to carry again to you.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“Come, be my love in the wet woods, come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when tot the heart of man
Was it ever less than a teason
to go with the drift of things,
to yield with a grace to reason,
and bow and accept and accept the end
of a love or a season?”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“She a window flower,/And he a winter breeze”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“[…] the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named.
The obscuration upon earth.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“Not far, but near,
I stood and saw it all,
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“My Butterfly. An Elegy

THINE emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.

The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago—
It seems forever—
Since first I saw thee glance,
With all the dazzling other ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.

When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.

Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless wings,
Nor yet did I.

And there were other things:
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:
Then fearful he had let thee win
Too far beyond him to be gathered in,
Snatched thee, o’er eager, with ungentle grasp.

Ah! I remember me
How once conspiracy was rife
Against my life—
The languor of it and the dreaming fond;
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!

Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!

I found that wing broken to-day!
For thou are dead, I said,
And the strange birds say.
I found it with the withered leaves
Under the eaves.

Robert Frost, A Boy’s Will. (1st World Library - Literary Society February 20, 2006) Originally published 1913.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“Flower-gathering

    I LEFT you in the morning,
    And in the morning glow,
    You walked a way beside me
    To make me sad to go.
    Do you know me in the gloaming,
    Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming?
    Are you dumb because you know me not,
    Or dumb because you know?
    All for me? And not a question
    For the faded flowers gay
    That could take me from beside you
    For the ages of a day?
    They are yours, and be the measure
    Of their worth for you to treasure,
    The measure of the little while
    That I've been long away.”
― Robert Frost, A Boy's Will

“Into my own”
― Robert FROST (1874 - 1963), A Boy's Will