Robert Frost

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 really stars at heart) Achieve at times a very star-like start. Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

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

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

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.

INTO MY OWNOne of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as __were, 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__r 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.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

The way a crowShook down on meThe dust of snowFrom a hemlock treeHas given my heartA change of moodAnd saved some partOf a day I had rued.

We ran as if to meet the moon.

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.

The rain to the wind said,You push and I'll pelt.'They so smote the garden bedThat the flowers actually knelt,And lay lodged--though not dead.I know how the flowers felt.

The Road Not TakenTwo 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 I_ I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

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 say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.

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 the harp-like morning-glory strings,Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,As if she played unheard the tendernessThat wrought on him beside her in the night.

Space ails us moderns: we are sick with space.

The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.