Happy Birthday, Robert Frost — Quotes & a Poetry Reading
Today, American poet, Robert Frost, would have been 144 years old. To celebrate his birthday, below, are some words of wit and wisdom from this national treasure.
And the work is play for mortal stakes
Is the deed ever truly done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
The Fear of God
If you should rise from Nowhere up to Somewhere,
From being No one up to being Someone,
Be sure to keep repeating to yourself
You owe it to an arbitrary god
Whose mercy to you rather than to others
Won’t bear to critical examination.
Stay unassuming. If for lack of license
To wear the uniform of who you are,
You should be tempted to make up for it
In a subordinating look or toe,
Beware of coming too much to the surface
And using for apparel that was meant
To be the curtain of the inmost soul.
A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.
The best way out is always through.
My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.
All those who try to go it sole alone, Too proud to be beholden for relief, Are absolutely sure to come to grief.
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Fire & Ice
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 twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
And, because I admire the last short poem, quoted above, for its characteristic brevity and profundity, here is my reading of Fire & Ice by Robert Frost
(Image of Frost Creative Commons)
Robert Frost is awesome.
I agree :) Once his words enter our system, they stay!
I love Frost. I didnt know much about him until one day, in the wildnerness in Tasmania, we stopped for lunch. Written in marker on the toilet wall was this:
Dust of Snow
BY ROBERT FROST
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
All week those words rattled around my head, until I got home and hunted out a collection of his poetry. His brevity, the tensions between man and his landscape, blew me away. A few years later I got to teach him. Blessed.
How remarkable! Thanks, for sharing with me your wonderful experience and this lovely poem I was not aware of--in Frost we trust :)
when i was in grade school we had to memorize a poem by heart. I chose stopping by the woods on a snowy evening. decades later i still know most of it off the top of my head.
The first cut is the deepest ;) I also still remember the first poem I fell in love with and committed to memory. Thanks, for sharing this, @torico 🙏🏼
I find this poem incredibly disturbing in a sublime way. It always gives me goosebumps and I can hear the bells of the horse clear as day.
that's odd. i never hear the bells as much as i do the snow whispering as it falls to the earth while the tree branches creak in the wind.
Oh I hear them too! 😄
Some really great selections here, especially the opening ones . Oh brother Frost, hope you rest well <3
All who continue to read him, bless him in a fashion, and help him to be free (or so I believe) <3 Happy you enjoyed this selection of my favorite bits...
Really nice. He was a wonderful poet.
Glad you enjoyed these excerpts and, please, feel free to share your own favorites :) It's remarkable how much he could say in such little space!
Yeah, it is remarkable. That's the mark of a great writer.
I have studied his poetry when I was in school
My favorite is The Road Not Taken
Yes, that’s, justly, one of his most celebrated poems:
The road not taken has a really good message choosing your own destiny is up to you
Nice poem , happy brday to Robert Frost sir
Which poem did you like?
I like fire and ice wordings . And the lines before fear of god poem.
Thank you, for letting me know. I appreciate those pieces, too. Have a good day `_/|_'
After reading his finest poetry i am convinced that he had inspired so many modern and old poets to copy him. Pleasant effect of metaphor and personification can be found in his writings that make him the pillar of Poetry.
Thank you Yahia for reminding us the birthday of this soul :)
Well said, Salman. Frost is certainly one of the great poets of the 20th century. With his deceptively simple language, he is often able to communicate deep ideas. Good to hear you enjoyed the sample I share, here; I think we improve, as writers, when we read the masters
_/|\_I am cent per cent agreed what you said and yes they all are our mentors ;)