Robert Frost (1874–1963).  A Boy’s Will.  1913. Contents click here

1. 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	5
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	10
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. 20. Going for Water     THE WELL was dry beside the door,   And so we went with pail and can Across the fields behind the house   To seek the brook if still it ran;   Not loth to have excuse to go,         5   Because the autumn eve was fair (Though chill), because the fields were ours,   And by the brook our woods were there.   We ran as if to meet the moon   That slowly dawned behind the trees,         10 The barren boughs without the leaves,   Without the birds, without the breeze.   But once within the wood, we paused   Like gnomes that hid us from the moon, Ready to run to hiding new         15   With laughter when she found us soon.   Each laid on other a staying hand   To listen ere we dared to look, And in the hush we joined to make   We heard, we knew we heard the brook.         20   A note as from a single place,   A slender tinkling fall that made Now drops that floated on the pool   Like pearls, and now a silver blade. 26. Pan with Us     PAN came out of the woods one day,— His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, The gray of the moss of walls were they,—   And stood in the sun and looked his fill   At wooded valley and wooded hill.         5   He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand, On a height of naked pasture land; In all the country he did command   He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.   That was well! and he stamped a hoof.         10   His heart knew peace, for none came here To this lean feeding save once a year Someone to salt the half-wild steer,   Or homespun children with clicking pails   Who see no little they tell no tales.         15   He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach A new-world song, far out of reach, For a sylvan sign that the blue jay’s screech   And the whimper of hawks beside the sun   Were music enough for him, for one.         20   Times were changed from what they were: Such pipes kept less of power to stir The fruited bough of the juniper   And the fragile bluets clustered there   Than the merest aimless breath of air.         25   They were pipes of pagan mirth, And the world had found new terms of worth. He laid him down on the sun-burned earth   And ravelled a flower and looked away—   Play? Play?—What should he play?         30    North of Boston.  1914.   1. The Pasture     I’M going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.   I’m going out to fetch the little calf         5 That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.