Robert Frost

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Robert Frost 1874-1963
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The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight
and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for
love. A poem is a momentary stay against
confusion. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove
the poem must ride on its own melting. Poetry
is a way of taking life by the throat. Free
verse is like playing tennis with the net
down. --Robert Frost
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Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Whose woods
these are I think I know. His house is in the
village though He will not see me stopping
here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My
little horse must think it queer To stop without
a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen
lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives
his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some
mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy
wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely,
dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep, And
miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go
before I sleep.
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Mending Wall Something there is that doesn't love
a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under
it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The
work of hunters is another thing I have come
after them and made repair Where they have left
not one stone on a stone, But they would have
the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping
dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made
or heard them made, But at spring mending-time
we find them there. I let my neighbor know
beyond the hill And on a day we meet to walk
the line And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. To each
the boulders that have fallen to each.
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Mending Wall And some are loaves and some so
nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them
balance 'Stay where you are until our backs are
turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling
them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more There
where it is we do not need the wall He is all
pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will
never get across And eat the cones under his
pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences
make good neighbors'.
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Mending Wall Spring is the mischief in me, and I
wonder If I could put a notion in his head
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no
cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out, And to
whom I was like to give offence. Something there
is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it
down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, But it's not
elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for
himself. I see him there Bringing a stone
grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an
old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as
it seems to me Not of woods only and the shade
of trees. He will not go behind his father's
saying, And he likes having thought of it so
well He says again, "Good fences make good
neighbors."
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After Apple Picking My long two-pointed ladder's
sticking through a treeToward heaven still,And
there's a barrel that I didn't fillBeside it,
and there may be two or threeApples I didn't
pick upon some bough.But I am done with
apple-picking now.Essence of winter sleep is on
the night,The scent of apples I am drowsing
off.I cannot rub the strangeness from my sightI
got from looking through a pane of glassI
skimmed this morning from the drinking troughAnd
held against the world of hoary grass.It melted,
and I let it fall and break.But I was wellUpon
my way to sleep before it fell,And I could
tellWhat form my dreaming was about to
take.Magnified apples appear and disappear,Stem
end and blossom end,And every fleck of russet
showing clear.
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After Apple Picking My instep arch not only keeps
the ache,It keeps the pressure of a
ladder-round.I feel the ladder sway as the
boughs bend.And I keep hearing from the cellar
binThe rumbling soundOf load on load of apples
coming in.For I have had too muchOf
apple-picking I am overtiredOf the great
harvest I myself desired.There were ten thousand
thousand fruit to touch,Cherish in hand, lift
down, and not let fall.For allThat struck the
earth,No matter if not bruised or spiked with
stubble,Went surely to the cider-apple heapAs
of no worth.
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After Apple Picking One can see what will
troubleThis sleep of mine, whatever sleep it
is.Were he not gone,The woodchuck could say
whether it's like hisLong sleep, as I describe
its coming on,Or just some human sleep.
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The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood And sorry I could not travel both And be one
traveller, 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 feet 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 I -- I took the one less traveled
by, And that has made all the difference.
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Langston Hughes 1902-1967
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W. E. B. Dubois (1868-1963)
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
Malcolm X (1925-1965)
Martin Luther King (1929-1968)
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Harlem What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or
fester like a sore And then run? Does it
stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar
over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just
sags like a heavy load. Or does it
explode?
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Mother to Son Well, son, I'll tell youLife for
me ain't been no crystal stair.It's had tacks in
it,And splinters,And boards torn up,And places
with no carpet on the floor --Bare.But all the
timeI'se been a-climbin' on,And reachin'
landin's,And turnin' corners,And sometimes
goin' in the darkWhere there ain't been no
light.So boy, don't you turn back.Don't you set
down on the steps'Cause you finds it's kinder
hard.Don't you fall now --For I'se still goin',
honey,I'se still climbin',And life for me ain't
been no crystal stair.
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I, Too I, too, sing America.I am the darker
brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen
company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And
grow strong.Tomorrow,I'll be at the tableWhen
company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,"Eat in
the kitchen,"Then.
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I, Too Besides, They'll see how beautiful I
amAnd be ashamed--I, too, am America.
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Song for a Dark Girl Way Down South in Dixie
 (Break the heart of me) They hung my black
young lover  To a cross roads tree. Way Down
South in Dixie  (Bruised body high in air) I
asked the white Lord Jesus  What was the use of
prayer. Way Down South in Dixie  (Break the
heart of me) Love is a naked shadow  On a
gnarled and naked tree.
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Theme for English B The instructor said,Go
home and writea page tonight.And let that page
come out of you--Then, it will be true. I
wonder if it's that simple?I am twenty-two,
colored, born in Winston-Salem.I went to school
there, then Durham, then hereto this college on
the hill above Harlem.I am the only colored
student in my class.The steps from the hill lead
down into Harlem,through a park, then I cross
St. Nicholas,Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come
to the Y,the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the
elevatorup to my room, sit down, and write this
page
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Theme for English BIt's not easy to know what
is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But
I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear,
Harlem, I hear youhear you, hear me--we
two--you, me, talk on this page.(I hear New
York, too.) Me--who?Well, I like to eat, sleep,
drink, and be in love.I like to work, read,
learn, and understand life.I like a pipe for a
Christmas present,or records--Bessie, bop, or
Bach.I guess being colored doesn't make me not
likethe same things other folks like who are
other races.So will my page be colored that I
write?
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Theme for English BBeing me, it will not be
white. But it will bea part of you, instructor.
You are white-- yet a part of me, as I am a
part of you. That's American.Sometimes perhaps
you don't want to be a part of me. Nor do I
often want to be a part of you.But we are,
that's true! As I learn from you, I guess you
learn from me-- although you're older--and
white-- and somewhat more free.This is my page
for English B.