Part of a moon was falling down the west,Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.Its light poured softly in her lap. She sawAnd spread her apron to it. She put out her handAmong...

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

Where had I heard this wind beforeChange like this to a deeper roar?What would it take my standing there for,Holding open a restive door,Looking down hill to a frothy shore?Summer was past and day was...

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.And so I dream of going back to be.

A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.

There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won’t, and that’s a wife who can’t cook and will.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

We ran as if to meet the moon.

They cannot scare me with their empty spacesBetween stars—on stars where no human race is.I have it in me so much nearer homeTo scare myself with my own desert places.

Lodged”The rain to the wind said,’You push and I’ll pelt.’They so smote the garden bed.That the flowers actually knelt,And lay lodged — though not dead.I know how the flowers felt.

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.

Tree 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...

Thinking is not to agree or disagree. That’s voting.

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get...

For, dear me, why abandon a beliefMerely because it ceases to be true?Cling to it long enough, and not a doubtIt will turn true again, for so it goes.Most of the change we think we...

And lonely as it is that lonelinessWill be more lonely ere it will be less–A blanker whiteness of benighted snowWith no expression, nothing to express.They cannot scare me with their empty spacesBetween stars–on stars where...

We love the things we love for what they are.

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...

If one by one we counted people outFor the least sin, it wouldn’t take us longTo get so we had no one left to live with.For to be social is to be forgiving.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

Fragmentary BlueWhy make so much of fragmentary blueIn here and there a bird, or butterfly,Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as...

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

The Road Not TakenTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the...

Nature’s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Nothing gold can stay.

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to...

Nor is there wanting in the pressSome spirit to stand simply forth,Heroic in it nakedness,Against the uttermost of earth.The tale of earth’s unhonored thingsSounds nobler there than ‘neath the sun;And the mind whirls and the...

An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.

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 twiceI think I know enough of hateTo...

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves.

Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.

The heart can think of no devotionGreater than being shore to the ocean-Holding the curve of one position,Counting an endless repetition.

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

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,A luminary...

We dance round in a ring and suppose,But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

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...

It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage…

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

RELUCTANCEOut 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,...

I hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo know that for destruction iceIs also great

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...

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...

How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?