MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

Copyright, Henry Holt and Company

ROBERT FROST

From the original in plaster by AROLDO Du CHENE

MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

BY

ROBERT FROST

NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1916, 1921

BY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

May, 1931

REPLACING

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY

THE QUINN a BODEN COMPANY

RAHWAY. N. J.

P5 3 « 1 1

TO YOU

WHO LEAST NEED REMINDING

that before this interval of the South Branch under black mountains, there was another interval, the Upper at Plymouth, where we walked in spring be yond the covered bridge; but that the first interval of all was the old farm, our brook interval, so called by the man we had it from in sale.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 9

CHRISTMAS TREES 11

AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT 14

A PATCH OF OLD SNOW 15

IN THE HOME STRETCH 16

THE TELEPHONE . .. . . , - > 24

MEETING AND PASSING . 25

HYLA BROOK ...... ' .„ . . 26

THE OVEN BIRD .'.... 27

BOND AND FREE 23

BIRCHES ................. 29

PEA BRUSH .... .. .......... 31

PUTTING IN THE SEED 32

A TIME TO TALK ... . . . ....... 33

THE COW IN APPLE TIME . ......... 34

AN ENCOUNTER . . . . . . . . .... . 35

RANGE-FINDING . . . . ..... . . ... 36

THE HILL WIFE ...*.......,.. 37

I LONELINESS -HER WORD 37

II HOUSE FEAR 37

III THE SMILE — HER WORD 38

IV THE OFT REPEATED DREAM 38

V THE IMPULSE 39

THE BONFIRE . 41

CONTENTS

A GIRL'S GARDEN . * ... 45

THE EXPOSED NEST 48

"OUT, OUT— " *..... 50

BROWN'S DESCENT OR THE WILLY-NILLY SLIDE . . 52

THE GUM-GATHERER 56

THE LINE-GANG 58

THE VANISHING RED 59

SNOW 61

THE SOUND OF THE TREES 75

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

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 / —

1 took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

CHRISTMAS TREES (A Christmas Circular Letter)

THE city had withdrawn into itself And left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, Yet did in country fashion in that there He sat and waited till he drew us out A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. He proved to be the city come again To look for something it had left behind And could not do without and keep its Christmas. He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; My woods — the young fir balsams like a place Where houses all are churches and have spires. I hadn't thought of them as Christmas Trees. I doubt if I was tempted for a moment To sell them off their feet to go in cars And leave the slope behind the house all bare, Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. I'd hate to have them know it if I was. Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except As others hold theirs or refuse for them, Beyond the time of profitable growth, The trial by market everything must come to. I dallied so much with the thought of selling.

11

12 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

Then whether from mistaken courtesy And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said, " There aren't enough to be worth while." " I could soon tell how many they would cut, You let me look them over."

" You could look.

But don't expect I'm going to let you have them." Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close That lop each other of boughs, but not a few Quite solitary and having equal boughs All round and round. The latter he nodded " Yes " to, Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, With a buyer's moderation, " That would do." I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so. We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over, And came down on the north.

He said, "A thousand."

"A thousand Christmas trees! — at what apiece?"

He felt some need of softening that to me:

" A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars."

Then I was certain I had never meant

To let him have them. Never show surprise!

But thirty dollars seemed so small beside

The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents

(For that was all they figured out apiece),

Three cents so small beside the dollar friends

CHRISTMAS TREES 13

I should be writing to within the hour

Would pay in cities for good trees like those,

Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools

Could hang enough on to pick off enough.

A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had!

Worth three cents more to give away than sell,

As may be shown by a simple calculation.

Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter.

I can't help wishing I could send you one,

In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

AN OLD MAN'S WINTER NIGHT

ALL out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept him from remembering what it was That brought him to that creaking room was age. He stood with barrels round him — at a loss. And having scared the cellar under him In clomping there, he scared it once again In clomping off; — and scared the outer night, Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar Of trees and crack of branches, common things, But nothing so like beating on a box. A light he was to no one but himself Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, A quiet light, and then not even that. He consigned to the moon, such as she was, So late-arising, to the broken moon As better than the sun in any case For such a charge, his snow upon the roof, His icicles along the wall to keep; And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted, And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept. One aged man — one man — can't fill a house, A farm, a countryside, or if he can, It's thus he does it of a winter night. 14

A PATCH OF OLD SNOW

THERE'S a patch of old snow in a corner

That I should have guessed Was a blow-away paper the rain

Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if Small print overspread it,

The news of a day I've forgotten — If I ever read it.

16

IN THE HOME STRETCH

SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked

Over the sink out through a dusty window

At weeds the water from the sink made tall.

She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.

Behind her was confusion in the room,

Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people

In other chairs, and something, come to look,

For every room a house has — parlor, bed-room,

And dining-room — thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.

And now and then a smudged, infernal face

Looked in a door behind her and addressed

Her back. She always answered without turning.

" Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady? "

" Put it on top of something that's on top

Of something else," she laughed. " Oh, put it where

You can to-night, and go. It's almost dark;

You must be getting started back to town."

Another blackened face thrust in and looked

And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke gently,

" What are you seeing out the window, lady? "

"Never was I beladied so before. Would evidence of having been called lady More than so many times make me a ladv In common law. I wonder."

16

IN THE HOME STRETCH 17

"But I ask, What are you seeing out the window, lady? "

" What I'll be seeing more of in the years To come as here I stand and go the round Of many plates with towels many times."

"And what is that? You only put me off."

" Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe; A little stretch of mowing-field for you; Not much of that until I come to woods That end all. And it's scarce enough to call A view."

"And yet you think you like it, dear? "

"That's what you're so concerned to know! You hope

I like it. Bang goes something big away

Off there upstairs. The very tread of men

As great as those is shattering to the frame

Of such a little house. Once left alone,

You and I, dear, will go with softer steps

Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none

But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands

Will ever slam the doors."

" I think you see More than you like to own to out that window."

" No ; for besides the things I tell you of, I only see the years. They come and go In alternation with the weeds, the field, The wood."

18 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

"What kind of years?"

"Why, latter years — Different from early years."

" I see them, too. You didn't count them? "

" No, the further off So ran together that I didn't try to. It can scarce be that they would be in number We'd care to know, for we are not young now. And bang goes something else away off there. It sounds as if it were the men went down, And every crash meant one less to return To lighted city streets we, too, have known, But now are giving up for country darkness."

" Come from that window where you see too much for me,

And take a livelier view of things from here.

They're going. Watch this husky swarming up

Over the wheel into the sky-high seat,

Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose

At the flame burning downward as he sucks it."

" See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof

How dark it's getting. Can you tell what time

It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon!

What shoulder did I see her over? Neither.

A wire she is of silver, as new as we

To everything. Her light won't last us long.

It's something, though, to know we're going to have her

Night after night and stronger every night

To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe,

The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window;

Ask them to help you get it on its feet.

We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back! "

"They're not gone yet."

IN THE HOME STRETCH 19

" We've got to have the stove, Whatever else we want for. And a light. Have we a piece of candle if the lamp And oil are buried out of reach? "

Again

The house was full of tramping, and the dark, Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove. A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall, To which they set it true by eye; and then Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands, So much too light and airy for their strength It almost seemed to come ballooning up, Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling. "A fit ! " said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder. " It's good luck when you move in to begin With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind, It's not so bad in the country, settled down, When people 're getting on in life. You'll like it." Joe said : " You big boys ought to find a farm, And make good farmers, and leave other fellows The city work to do. There's not enough For everybody as it is in there." "God! " one said wildly, and, when no one spoke: " Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm." But Jimmy only made his jaw recede Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French boy Who said with seriousness that made them laugh, " Ma friend, you ain't know what it is you're ask." He doffed his cap and held it with both hands Across his chest to make as 'twere a bow: " We're giving you our chances on de farm." And then they all turned to with deafening boots And put each other bodily out of the house. " Goodby to them ! We puzzle them. They think —

20 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

I don't know what they think we see in what They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems The back some farm presents us; and your woods To northward from your window at the sink, Waiting to steal a step on us whenever We drop our eyes or turn to other things, As in the game ' Ten-step ' the children play."

" Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city. All they could say was 'God! ' when you proposed Their coming out and making useful farmers."

" Did they make something lonesome go through you?

It would take more than them to sicken you —

Us of our bargain. But they left us so

As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.

They almost shook me.'"

" It's all so much

What we have always wanted, I confess It's seeming bad for a moment makes it seem Even worse still, and so on down, down, down. It's nothing; it's their leaving us at dusk. I never bore it well when people went. The first night after guests have gone, the house Seems haunted or exposed. I always take A personal interest in the locking up At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off." He fetched a dingy lantern from behind A door. "There's that we didn't lose! And these!"— Some matches he unpocketed. " For food — The meals we've had no one can take from us. I wish that everything on earth were just As certain as the meals we've had. I wish

IN THE HOME STRETCH 21

The meals we haven't had were, anyway.

What have you you know where to lay your hands on? "

" The bread we bought in passing at the store. There's butter somewhere, too."

" Let's rend the bread. I'll light the fire for company for you; You'll not have any other company Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday To look us over and give us his idea Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up. He'll know what he would do if he were we, And all at once. He'll plan for us and plan To help us, but he'll take it out in planning. Well, you can set the table with the loaf. Let's see you find your loaf. I'll light the fire. I like chairs occupying other chairs Not offering a lady — "

" There again, Joe ! You re tired."

"I'm drunk-nonsensical tired out; Don't mind a word I say. It's a day's work To empty one house of all household goods And fill another with 'em fifteen miles away, Although you do no more than dump them down."

" Dumped down in paradise we are and happy."

" It's all so much what I have always wanted, I can't believe it's what you wanted, too."

"Shouldn't you like to know?"

22 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

" I'd like to know

If it is what you wanted, then how much You wanted it for me."

"A troubled conscience! You don't want me to tell if / don't know."

" I don't want to find out what can't be known. But who first said the word to come? "

" My dear,

It's who first thought the thought. You're searching, Joe, For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings — there are no such things. There are only middles."

"What is this?"

" This life?

Our sitting here by lantern-light together Amid the wreckage of a former home? You won't deny the lantern isn't new. The stove is not, and you are not to me, Nor I to you."

" Perhaps you never were? "

" It would take me forever to recite All that's not new in where we find ourselves. New is a word for fools in towns who think Style upon style in dress and thought at last Must get somewhere. I've heard you say as much. No, this is no beginning."

"Then an end?"

IN THE HOME STRETCH 23

" End is a gloomy word."

" Is it too late

To drag you out for just a good-night call On the old peach trees on the knoll to grope By starlight in the grass for a last peach The neighbors may not have taken as their right When the house wasn't lived in? I've been looking: I doubt if they have left us many grapes. Before we set ourselves to right the house, The first thing in the morning, out we go To go the round of apple, cherry, peach, Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook. All of a farm it is."

" I know this much : I'm going to put you in your bed, if first I have to make you build it. Come, the light."

When there was no more lantern in the kitchen, The fire got out through crannies in the stove And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling, As much at home as if they'd always danced there.

THE TELEPHONE

"WHEN I was just as far as I could walk

From here to-day,

There was an hour

All still

When leaning with my head against a flower

I heard you talk.

Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say —

You spoke from that flower on the window sill

DC you remember what it was you said? "

First tell me what it was you thought you heard."

" Having found the flower and driven a bee away,

I leaned my head,

And holding by the stalk,

I listened and I thought I caught the word —

What was it? Did you call me by my name?

Or did you say —

Someone said ' Come ' — I heard it as I bowed."

* I may have thought as much, but not aloud.' " Well, so I came,"

24

MEETING AND PASSING

As I went down the hill along the wall There was a gate I had leaned at for the view And had just turned from when I first saw you As you came up the hill. We met. But all We did that day was mingle great and small Footprints in summer dust as if we drew The figure of our being less than two But more than one as yet. Your parasol

Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust. And all the time we talked you seemed to see Something down there to smile at in the dust (Oh, it was without prejudice to me!) Afterward I went past what you had passed Before we met and you what I had passed.

25

HYLA BROOK

BY Jtine our brook's run out of song and speed.

Sought for much after that, it will be found

Either to have gone groping underground

(And taken with it all the Hyla breed

That shouted in the mist a month ago,

Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow) —

Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,

Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent

Even against the way its waters went.

Its bed is left a faded paper sheet

Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat —

A brook to none but who remember long.

This as it will be seen is other far

Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.

We love the things we love for what they are.

26

THE OVEN BIRD

THERE is a singer everyone has heard,

Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

He says the early petal-fall is past

When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers

On sunny days a moment overcast;

And comes that other fall we name the fall.

He says the highway dust is over all.

The bird would cease and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing not to sing.

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

27

BOND AND FREE

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.

28

BIRCHES

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storhis do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust — Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. 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: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows — Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees

29

30 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

PEA BRUSH

I WALKED down alone Sunday after church To the place where John has been cutting trees

To see for myself about the birch

He said I could have to bush my peas.

The sun in the new-cut narrow gap

Was hot enough for the first of May,

And stifling hot with the odor of sap

From stumps still bleeding their life away.

The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill Wherever the ground was low and wet,

The minute they heard my step went still To watch me and see what I came to get.

Birch boughs enough piled everywhere! — All fresh and sound from the recent axe.

Time someone came with cart and pair And got them off the wild flower's backs.

They might be good for garden things

To curl a little finger round, The same as you seize cat's-cradle strings,

And lift themselves up off the ground.

Small good to anything growing wild, They were crooking many a trillium

That had budded before the boughs were piled And since it was coming up had to come. 31

PUTTING IN THE SEED

You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper's on the table, and we'll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree. (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me, Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

32

A TIME TO TALK

WHEN a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

THE COW IN APPLE TIME

SOMETHING inspires the only cow of late

To make no more of a wall than an open gate,

And think no more of wall-builders than fools.

Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools

A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,

She scorns a pasture withering to the root.

She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten

The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.

She leaves them bitten when she has to fly.

She bellows on a knoll against the sky.

Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.

34

AN ENCOUNTER

ONCE on the kind of day called " weather breeder,"

When the heat slowly hazes and the sun

By its own power seems to be undone,

I was half boring through, half climbing through

A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar

And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated,

And sorry I ever left the road I knew,

I paused and rested on a sort of hook

That had me by the coat as good as seated,

And since there was no other way to look,

Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue,

Stood over me a resurrected tree,

A tree that had been down and raised again —

A barkless spectre. He had halted too,

As if for fear of treading upon me.

I saw the strange position of his hands —

Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands

Of wire with something in it from men to men.

"You here?" I said. "Where aren't you nowadays

And what's the news you carry — if you know?

And tell me where you're off for — Montreal?

Me? I'm not off for anywhere at all.

Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways

Half looking for the orchid Calypso."

35

RANGE-FINDING

THE battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung

And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest

Before it stained a single human breast.

The stricken flower bent double and so hung.

And still the bird revisited her young.

A butterfly its fall had dispossessed

A moment sought in air his flower of rest,

Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.

On the bare upland pasture there had spread O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread And straining cables wet with silver dew. A sudden passing bullet shook it dry. The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly, But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

THE HILL WIFE

LONELINESS

(Her Word)

ONE ought not to have to care

So much as you and I Care when the birds come round the house

To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back

With whatever it is they sing; The truth being we are as much

Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the other here — With birds that fill their breasts

But with each other and themselves And their built or driven nests.

HOUSE FEAR

Always — I tell you this they learned — Always at night when they returned To the lonely house from far away To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray, They learned to rattle the lock and key To give whatever might chance to be 37

38 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

Warning and time to be off in flight: And preferring the out- to the in-door night, They learned to leave the house-door wide Until they had lit the lamp inside.

THE SMILE

(Her Word)

I didn't like the way he went away.

That smile! It never came of being gay.

Still he smiled — did you see him? — I was sure!

Perhaps because we gave him only bread

And the wretch knew from that that we were poor.

Perhaps because he let us give instead

Of seizing from us as he might have seized.

Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed,

Or being very young (and he was pleased

To have a vision of us old and dead).

I wonder how far down the road he's got.

He's watching from the woods as like as not.

THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM

She had no saying dark enough

For the dark pine that kept Forever trying the window-latch

Of the room where they slept.

The tireless but ineffectual hands

That with every futile pass Made the great tree seem as a little bird

Before the mystery of glass!

THE HILL WIFE 39

It never had been inside the room,

And only one of the two Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream

Of what the tree might do.

THE IMPULSE

It was too lonely for her there,

And too wild, And since there were but two of them,

And no child,

And work was little in the house,

She was free, And followed where he furrowed field,

Or felled tree.

She rested on a log and tossed

The fresh chips, With a song only to herself

On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough

Of black alder. She strayed so far she scarcely heard

When he called her —

And didn't answer — didn't speak —

Or return. ' She stood, and then she ran and hid

In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked

Everywhere, And he asked at her mother's house

Was she there.

40 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

Sudden and swift and light as that

The ties gave, And he learned of finalities

Besides the grave.

THE BONFIRE

" OH, let's go up the hill and scare ourselves,

As reckless as the best of them to-night,

By setting fire to all the brush we piled

With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow.

Oh, let's not wait for rain to make it safe.

The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough

Down dark converging paths between the pines.

Let's not care what we do with it to-night.

Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile

The way we piled it. And let's be the talk

Of people brought to windows by a light

Thrown from somewhere against their wall-paper.

Rouse them all, both the free and not so free

With saying what they'd like to do to us

For what they'd better wait till we have done.

Let's all but bring to life this old volcano,

If that is what the mountain ever was —

And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will. . . ."

"And scare you too? " the children said together.

" Why wouldn't it scare me to have a fire Begin in smudge with ropy smoke and know That still, if I repent, I may recall it, But in a moment not: a little spurt Of burning fatness, and then nothing but The fire itself can put it out, and that By burning out, and before it burns out It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars, And sweeping round it with a flaming sword, Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle —

41

42 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

Done so much and I know not how much more

I mean it shall not do if I can bind it.

Well if it doesn't with its draft bring on

A wind to blow in earnest from some quarter,

As once it did with me upon an April.

The breezes were so spent with winter blowing

They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them

Short of the perch their languid flight was toward;

And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven

As I walked once round it in possession.

But the wind out of doors — you know the saying.

There came a gust. You used to think the trees

Made wind by fanning since you never knew

It blow but that you saw the trees in motion.

Something or someone watching made that gust.

It put the flame tip-down and dabbed the grass

Of over-winter with the least tip-touch

Your tongue gives salt or sugar in your hand.

The place it reached to blackened instantly.

The black was all there was by day-light,

That and the merest curl of cigarette smoke —

And a flame slender as the hepaticas,

Blood-root, and violets so soon to be now.

But the black spread like black death on the ground,

And I think the sky darkened with a cloud

Like winter and evening coming on together.

There were enough things to be thought of then.

Where the field stretches toward the north

And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it

To flames without twice thinking, where it verges

Upon the road, to flames too, though in fear

They might find fuel there, in withered brake,

Grass its full length, old silver golden-rod,

And alder and grape vine entanglement,

To leap the dusty deadline. For my own

THE BONFIRE 43

I took what front there was beside. I knelt

And thrust hands in and held my face away.

Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating.

A board is the best weapon if you have it.

I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew,

And said out loud, I couldn't bide the smother

And heat so close in; but the thought of all

The woods and town on fire by me, and all

The town turned out to fight for me — that held me.

I trusted the brook barrier, but feared

The road would fail ; and on that side the fire

Died not without a noise of crackling wood —

Of something more than tinder-grass and weed —

That brought me to my feet to hold it back

By leaning back myself, as if the reins

Were round my neck and I was at the plough.

I won! But I'm sure no one ever spread

Another color over a tenth the space

That I spread coal-black over in the time

It took me. Neighbors coming home from town

Couldn't believe that so much black had come there

While they had backs turned, that it hadn't been there

When they had passed an hour or so before

Going the other way and they not seen it.

They looked about for someone to have done it.

But there was no one. I was somewhere wondering

Where all my weariness had gone and why

I walked so light on air in heavy shoes

In spite of a scorched Fourth-of-July feeling.

Why wouldn't I be scared remembering that? "

" If it scares you, what will it do to us? "

" Scare you. But if you shrink from being scared, What would you say to war if it should come?

44 MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

That's what for reasons I should like to know — If you can comfort me by any answer."

" Oh, but war's not for children — it's for men."

" Now we are digging almost down to China.

My dears, my dears, you thought that — we all thought it.

So your mistake was ours. Haven't you heard, though,

About the ships where war has found them out

At sea, about the towns where war has come

Through opening clouds at night with droning speed

Further o'erhead than all but stars and angels, —

And children in the ships and in the towns?

Haven't you heard what we have lived to learn?

Nothing so new — something we had forgotten :

War is for everyone, for children too.

I wasn't going to tell you and I mustn't.

The best way is to come up hill with me

And have our fire and laugh and be afraid."

A GIRL'S GARDEN

A NEIGHBOR of mine in the village Likes to tell how one spring

When she was a girl on the farm, she did A childlike thing.

One