A Boy's Will

Of course I'd read a few poems by Robert Frost at some point during my life, but I wanted to get a little more familiar with poetry in general and Frost in particular, so I decided to begin at the beginning. There are some lovely poems in here, though perhaps none are my particular favorites.

"My November Guest" is wonderfully easy to read (i.e. the rhythm is natural--the interpretation is not quite so simple!) and felt as appropriate in January as November.

"The Tuft of Flowers", too, I especially liked. I read in it the transformative power of experience, as, in the space of a few lines, the speaker goes from:

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,--alone,

'As all must be,' I said within my

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heart,
'Whether they work together of apart.'

to:

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

'Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'

It's a lovely poem, indeed. show less

Early Frost---with the weakness of late 19th Century "poetic diction," There are glimmers of what great poetry that is to come. If you are studying his development, this is a good collection to see where Frost began, Otherwise, move to later collections for the good stuff.

I always loved how nostalgic, beautifully sad and honest those poems were. Robert Frost has a special place in my heart, and will forever.

written about the same time as Wind in the Willows, this also includes a reference to the god Pan

Robert Frost is much more than a yankee deciding on which road to take. I liked this one a lot.