English 204
Grant T. Smith, Ph. D.
Poetry
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 shan’t be gone long. –You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young
It totters when she licks it with her
tongue.
I shan’t be gone long. –You come too.
--Robert
Frost 1913
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.
--Robert
Frost 1923
The
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay
and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive
for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for
peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning
to where the cricket sings;
There
And evening
full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always
night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds
by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the
pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
--William Butler Yeats
-668-
‘Nature’ is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Boblink—the
Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her
Simplicity.
--Emily Dickinson
Traveling Through the Dark
Traveling through the dark I found a
deer
dead on the edge
of the
It is usually best to roll them into the
canyon:
that road is
narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back
of the car
and stood by
the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
She had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the
belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me
the reason—
her side was
warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
Alive still,
never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking
lights;
under the hood
purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust
turning red;
around our group I
could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only
swerving--,
then pushed her
over the edge into the river.
--William
Stafford