 section 1 of a boy's will this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Savannah Harold a boy's will by Robert Frost section 1 part 1 into my own the youth is persuaded that he will be rather more than less himself for having force war in the world ghost house he is happy in society of his choosing my November guest he is in love with being misunderstood love and a question he is in doubt whether to admit real trouble to a place beside the hurt with love a late walk he courts the autumn moon stars there is no oversight of human affairs storm here he is afraid of his own isolation wind and window flower out of the winter things he fashions a story of modern love to the thawing wind he calls on change through the violence of the elements a prayer in spring he discovers that the greatness of love lies not in forward-looking thoughts flower gathering nor yet in any spur it may be to ambition Rose Pagonia's he is no dissenter from the ritualism of nature asking for roses nor from the ritualism of youth which is make-believe waiting a field at dusk he arrives at the turn of the year in a veil out of all belongings he fashions a story a dream pain he is shown by a dream how really well it is with him in neglect he is scornful of folk his scorn cannot reach the vantage point and again scornful but there is no one hurt mowing he takes up life simply with the small tasks going for water part 2 revelation he resolves to become intelligible at least to himself since there is no help else the trial by existence and to know definitely what he thinks about the soul in equal sacrifice about love the tuft of flowers about fellowship spoils of the dead about death pan with us about art his own the demerges laugh about science part three now close the windows it is time to make an end of speaking in line storm song it is the autumn mood with a difference October he sees days slipping from him that were the best for what they were my butterfly there are things that can never be the same reluctance poem one into my own one of my wishes is that those dark trees so old and firm they scarcely show the breeze were not as for the nearest mask of gloom but stretched away unto the edge of doom I should not be withheld but that someday 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 error 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 end of into my own poem to ghost house I dwell in the lonely house I know that vanished many a summer ago and left no trace but the cellar walls and a cellar in which the daylight falls and the purple stem wild raspberries grow or ruined fences the grapevine shield the woods come back to the mowing field the orchard tree has grown one copes of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops the footpath down to the well is healed I dwell with a strangely aching heart in that banished abode there far apart on that disused and forgotten road that has no dust bath now for the toad night comes the black bats tumble and dart the whipper will is coming to shout and hush and cluck and flutter about I hear him begin far enough away full many a time to say his say before he arrives to say it out it is under the small dim summer star I know not who these mute folk are who share the unlit place with me those stones out under the low-limbed tree doubtless fair names that the mosses mar they are tireless bulk but slow and sad though too close keeping our laugh and lad with none among them that ever sings and yet in view of how many things as sweet companions as might be had end of ghost house poem 3 my November guest my sorrow when she's here with me thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be she loves the bear the withered tree she walks the sod and pasture lane her pleasure will not let me stay she talks and I am fain to list she's glad the birds are gone away she's glad her simple worst of gray is silver now with clean mixed the desolate deserted trees the faded earth the heavy sky the beauty she so truly sees she thinks I have no eye for these and vexes me for reasons why not yesterday I learned to know the love of their November day before the cunning of the snow but it were vain to tell her so and they are better for her praise end of my November guest poem 4 love and the question a stranger came to the door at ease and he spoke the bridegroom fair he bore a green white stick in his hand and for all burden care he asked with the eyes more than the lips for a shelter for the night and he turned and looked at the road afar without a window light the bridegroom came forth into the porch with let us look at the sky and question what of the night to be stranger you and I the woodbind leaves littered the yard the woodbind berries were blue autumn yes winter was in the wind stranger I wish I knew within the bride in the desk alone bent over the open fire her face rose red with the glowing coal and the thought of the heart's desire the bridegroom looked at the weary road yet saw but her within and wished her heart in a case of gold and pinned with a silver pin the bridegroom thought it little to give a dole of bread a curse a heartfelt prayer for the poor of God or for the rich a curse but whether or not a man was asked to mar the love of two by harboring woe in the bridal house the bridegroom wished he knew end of love and a question poem by a late walk when I go through the mowing field the headless aftermath smooth laid like thatch with the heavy dew half closes the garden path and when I come to the garden ground the were of sober birds up from the tangled of withered weeds is sadder than any words a tree beside the wall stands there but a leaf that lingered brown disturbed I doubt not by my thought comes softly rattling down I end not far from my going forth by picking the faded blue of the last remaining aster flower to carry again to you end of a late walk poem six stars how countless lead a congregate or are two mutual snow which flows in shapes as tall as trees when wintry winds do blow as if with keenness for our fate our faltering few steps on to white rest and a place of rest invisible at dawn and yet with neither love nor hate those stars like some snow white the nervous snow white Marvel eyes without the gift of sight end of stars poem seven storm here when the wind works against us in the dark and pelts with snow the lowest chamber window on the east and whispers with a sort of stifled bark the beats come out come out it costs no inward struggle not to go ah no I count our strength two in a child those of us not asleep subdued to mark how the cold creeps as the fire dies at length how drifts are piled door yard and road ungraded till even the comforting barn grows far away and my heart owns a doubt whether it is in us to arise with day and save ourselves unaided end of storm fear poem eight wind and window flower lovers forget your love and list to the love of these she a window flower and he a winter breeze when the frosty window veil was melted down at noon and the cageed yellow bird hung over her in tune he marked her through the pain he could not help but mark and only passed her by to come again at dark he was a winter wind concerned with ice and snow dead weeds and unmaded birds and little of love could know but he sighed upon the sill he gave the sash a shake as witness all within who lay that night awake perchance he half prevailed to win her for the flight from the fire lit looking glass and warm stove window light but the flower leaned aside and thought of not to say and morning found the breeze a hundred miles away and a wind and window flower and a section section two of a boy's will by Robert Frost this Liber Vox recording is in the public domain recording by Savannah Harold poem nine to the thawing wind come with rain oh loud self-westered bring the singer bring the nester give the buried flower a dream make the settled snow bank steam find the brown beneath the white but whatever you do tonight bake my window make it flow melt it as the ices go melt the glass and leave the sticks like a hermit's crucifix burst into my narrow stall swing the picture on the wall run the rattling pages over scatter poems on the floor turn the poet out of door end of to the thawing wind poem 10 a prayer in spring oh give us pleasure in the flowers today and give us not to think so far away as the uncertain harvest keep us here all simply in the springing of the year oh give us pleasure in the orchard white like nothing else by day like ghosts by night and make us happy in the happy bees the swarm dilating around the perfect trees and make us happy in the darting bird that suddenly above the bees is heard the meteor that thrusts in with needle bill and off a blossom in midair stand still for this is love and nothing else's love the which it is reserved for God above to sanctify it what far ends he will but which it only needs that we fulfill end of a prayer in spring poem 11 flower gathering I left you in the morning and in the morning glow you walked away beside me to make me sad to go do you know me in the gloaming gaunt and dusty gray with roaming are you dumb because you know me not or dumb because you know all for me and not a question for the faded flowers gay that could take me from beside you for the ages of a day they are yours and be the measure of their worth for you to treasure the measure of the little while that I've been long away in a flower gathering poem 12 Rose Pagonia's a saturated meadow sun-shaped and jewel small a circle scarcely wider than the trees around were tall where winds were quite excluded and the air was stifling sweet with the breath of many flowers a temple of the heat there we bowed us in the burning as the Sun's right worship is to pick where none could miss them a thousand orcas is for though the grass was scattered yet every second spear seemed tipped with wings of color that tinged the atmosphere we raised a simple prayer before we left the spot that in the general mowing that place might be forgot or if not also favored obtained such grace of ours that none should mow the grass there while so confused with flowers end of Rose Pagonia's poem 13 asking for roses a house that lacks seemingly mistress and master with doors that none but the wind ever closes its floors all littered with glass and with plaster it stands in a garden of old fashioned roses I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary I wonder I say who the owner of those is oh no one you know she answers me airy but when we must ask if we want any roses so we must join hands in the dew coming coldly there in the hush of the wood that reposes and turn and go up to the open door boldly and knock to the echoes as beggars for roses pray are you within there mistress who were you tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses pray are you within there be stir you be stir you tis summer again there's two come for roses a word with you that one of the singer recalling old herrick a saying that every maid knows is a flower unplugged is but left to the following and nothing is gained by not gathering roses we do not loosen our hands intertwining not caring so very much what she supposes there when she comes on us mistily shining and grants us by silence the boon of her roses end of asking for roses poem 14 waiting a field at desk what things for dream there are when specter like moving along tall haycocks lightly piled I enter alone upon the stubble field from which the laborer's voices late have died and in the antiphony of afterglow and rising full moon sit me down upon the full moon side of the first haycock and lose myself amid so many alike I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour preventing shadow until the moon prevail I dream upon the night hawks peopling heaven each circling each with vague unearthly cry or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar and on the bats mute antics who would seem dimly to have made out my secret place only to lizzet when he pirouettes and seek it endlessly with pure blind haste on the last swallow sweep and on the rasp in the abyss of odor and wrestle at my back that silenced by my advent finds once more after an integral is instrument and tries once twice and thrice if I be there and on the warren book of old golden song I brought not here to read it seems but hold and freshen in this air of withering sweetness but on the memory of one absent most for whom these lines when they shall greet her eye end of waiting afield at desk poem 15 in a veil when I was young we dwelt in a veil by a misty fin that rang all night and thus it was the maiden's pale I knew so well whose garments trail across the reads to a window light the fin had every kind of bloom and for every kind there was a face and a voice that has sounded in my room across the sill from the outer gloom each came singly onto her place but all came every night with the mist and often they brought so much to say of things of moment to which they wished when so lonely was famed to list that the stars were almost faded away before the last went heavy with dew back to the place from which she came where the bird was before it flew where the flower was before it grew where bird and flower were one in the same and thus it is I know so well why the flower has odor the bird has song you have only to ask me and I can tell no not vainly there did I dwell nor vainly listen all the night long end of in a veil poem 16 a dream came I had withdrawn in forest and my song was swallowed up in leaves that blew away and to the forest edge you came one day this was my dream and looked and pondered long but did not enter though the wish was strong you shook your pensive head as who should say I dare not too far in his footsteps stray he must seek me would he undo the wrong not far but near I stood and saw it all below low bowels the trees let down outside and the sweet pang it cost me not to call and tell you that I saw does still abide but is not true that thus I dwelt aloof for the wood wakes and you are here for proof end of a dream pain end of section part three of a boy's will by Robert Frost this LibriVox recording is in the public domain part three in neglect they leave us so to the way we took as two in whom they were proved mistaken that we sit sometimes in the wayside nook with mischievous vagrant seraphic look and try if we cannot feel forsaken the vantage point if tired of trees I seek again mankind well I know where to hide me in the dawn to a slope where the cattle keep the lawn there amid lowling juniper reclined myself unseen I see in white defined far off the homes of men and farther still the graves of men on an opposing hill living or dead whichever are to mind and if by moon I have too much of these I have but to turn of my arm and low the sunburned hillside sets my face aglow my breathing shakes the blue it like a breeze I smell the earth I smell the bruised plant I look into the crater of the aunt mowing there was never a sound beside the wood but one and that was my long side whispering to the ground what was it it whispered I knew not well myself perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun something perhaps about the lack of sound and that was why it whispered and did not speak it was no dream of the gift of idle hours or easy gold at the hand of Fay or Elf anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak to the earnest love that laid the swale in rows not without feeble pointed spikes of flowers pale orcas is and scared a bright green snake the fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows my long side whispered and left the hay to make going for water the well was dry beside the door and so we went with pale and can across the fields behind the house to seek the brook if still it ran not loath to have excuse to go because the autumn Eve was fair though chill because the fields were ours and by the brook our woods were there we ran as if to meet the moon that slowly dawned behind the trees the barren boughs without the leaves without the birds without the breeze but once within the wood we paused like gnomes that hit us from the moon ready to run to hiding new with laughter when she found us soon each laid on other a staying hand to listen air we dared to look and in the hush we joined to make we heard we knew we heard the brook a note is from a single place a slender tinkling fall that made now drops that floated on the pool like pearls and now a silver blade revelation we make ourselves a place apart behind light words that tease and flout but oh the agitated heart till someone find us really out his pity if the case require or so we say that in the end we speak the literal to inspire the understanding of a friend but so with all from babes that play at hide and seek to God afar so all who hide too well away must speak and tell us where they are the trial by existence even the bravest that our slain shall not disassemble their surprise on waking to find valor rain even as on earth in paradise and where they sought without the sword wide fields of asphodel for air to find that the utmost reward of daring should be still to dare the light of heaven falls whole and white and is not shattered into dies the light forever is morning light the hills are vergered pasture wise the angel hosts with freshness go and seek with laughter what to brave and binding all is the hushed snow of the far distant breaking wave and from a cliff top is proclaimed the gathering of the souls for birth the trial by existence named the obscuration upon earth and the slant spirits trooping by in streams and cross and counter streams can but give ear to that sweet cry for its suggestion of what dreams and the more loitering are turned to view once more the sacrifice of those who for some good discerned will gladly give up paradise and a white shimmering concourse rolls toward the throne to witness there the speeding of devoted souls which God makes his a special care and none are taken but who will having first heard the life read out that opens earthward good and ill beyond the shadow of a doubt and very beautifully God limbs and tenderly life's little dream but not extenuates or dims setting the thing that is supreme nor is there wanting in the press some spirit to stand simply forth heroic in its nakedness against the utter most of earth the tale of earth's unhonored things sounds nobler there than the sun and the mind whirls in the heart sings and a shout greets the daring one but always God speaks at the end. One thought in agony of strife the bravest would have by for friend the memory that he chose the life but the pure fate to which you go admits no memory of choice or the woe were not earthly woe to which you give the assenting voice. And so the choice must be again but the last choice is still the same and the awe passes wonder then and a hush falls for all acclaim and God has taken a flower of gold and broken it and use there from the mystic link to bind and hold spirit to matter till death come. Tis of the essence of life here though we choose greatly still to lack the lasting memory at all clear that life has for us on the rack nothing but what we somehow chose thus are we wholly stripped of pride in the pain that has but one close bearing it crushed and mystified. In equal sacrifice. Thus of old the Douglas did. He left his land as he was bid with the royal heart of Robert the Bruce in a golden case with a golden lid to carry the same to the Holy Land by which we see and understand that that was the place to carry a heart at loyalty and love's command and that was the case to carry it in. The Douglas had not far to win before he came to the land of Spain where long a holy war had been against the two victorious more and there his courage could not endure not to strike a blow for God before he made his errand sure. Whatever it was intended so that a man for God should strike a blow no matter the heart he has in charge for the Holy Land where hearts should go. But when in battle the foe were met the Douglas found him sore beset with only strength of the fighting arm for one more battle passage yet and that has vained to save the day as bring his body safe away only a signal deed to do and a last sounding word to say. The heart he wore in the golden chain he swung and flung forth into the plain and followed it crying heart or death and fighting over it perished feign. So may another do of right give a heart to the hopeless fight, the more of right the more he loves. So may another redouble might for a few swift gleams of the angry brand, scorning greatly not to demand an equal sacrifice with his the heart he bore to the Holy Land. The Tuft of Flowers I went to turn the grass once after one who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen before I came to view the levelled scene. I looked for him behind an aisle of trees, I listened for his whetstone on the breeze, but he had gone his way, the grass all moan, and I must be as he had been alone. As all must be, I said within my heart, whether they worked together or apart. But as I said it, swift there passed me by on noiseless wing a wildered butterfly, seeking with memories grown dim or night some resting flower of yesterday's delight. And once I marked his flight go round and round as where some flower lay withering on the ground. And then he flew as far as I could see, and then on tremulous wing came back to me. I thought of questions that have no reply, and would have turned to toss the grass to dry. But he turned first, and led my eye to look at a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook. A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. I left my place to know them by their name, finding them butterfly-weed when I came. The mower in the dew had loved them thus, by leaving them to flourish not for us, nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. The butterfly and I had lit upon, nevertheless, a message from the dawn, that made me hear the wakening birds around and hear his long scythe whispering to the ground 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 worked together, I told him from the heart, whether they worked together or apart. END OF PART IV SPOILS OF THE DEAD Two fairies it was on a still summer day came forth in the woods with the flowers to play. The flowers they plucked they cast on the ground for others, and those for still others they found. More guided it was that they came as they ran on something that lay in the shape of a man. The snow must have made the feathery bed when this one fell on the sleep of the dead. But the snow was gone a long time ago, and the body he wore nigh gone with the snow. The fairies drew near and keenly aspired a ring on his hand and a chain at his side. They knelt in the leaves and eerily played with the glittering things, and were not afraid. And when they went home to hide in their burrow they took them along to play with to-morrow. When you came on death did you not come flower-guided like the elves in the wood? I remember that I did, but I recognize death with sorrow and dread, and I hate it and hate the spoils of the dead. PAN WITH US Pan came out of the woods one day, his skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, the gray of the moss of walls were they, and stood in the sun and looked his fill at wooded valley and wooded hill. He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand, on a height of naked pasture-land. In all the country he did command he saw no smoke and he saw no roof. That was well, and he stamped a hoof. His heart knew peace, for none came here to this lean feeding save once a year someone to salt the half-wild steer, or homespun children with clicking pales who see so little they tell no tales. He tossed his pipes too hard to teach, a new world song far out of reach, for a sylvan sign that the blue jays screech and the whimper of hawks beside the sun were music enough for him, for one. Times were changed from what they were, such pipes kept less of power to stir the fruited bow of the juniper and the fragile bluits clustered there than the nearest aimless breath of air. They were pipes of pagan mirth, and the world had found new terms of worth. He laid him down on the sun-burned earth and raveled a flower and looked away. Play, play, what should he play? The Demiurges Laugh It was far in the sameness of the wood. I was running with joy on the demon's trail, though I knew what I hunted was no true god. It was just as the light was beginning to fail that I suddenly heard all I needed to hear. It has lasted me many and many a year. The sound was behind me instead of before, a sleepy sound, but mocking half, as of one who utterly couldn't care. The demon arose from his wallow to laugh, brushing the dirt from his eye as he went. And well I knew what the demon meant. I shall not forget how his laugh rang out. I felt as a fool to have been so caught and checked my steps to make pretense it was something among the leaves I sought, though doubtful whether he stayed to see. Thereafter I sat me against a tree. Now close the windows. Now close the windows and hush all the fields, if the trees must let them silently toss. No bird is singing now, and if there is, be it my loss. It will be long ere the marshes resume, it will be long ere the earliest bird. So close the windows and not hear the wind, but see all wind stirred. A Line Storm Song The line storm clouds fly tattered and swift, the road is forlorn all day, where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift, and the hoofprints vanish away. The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee, expend their bloom in vain. Come over the hills and far with me, and be my love in the rain. Birds have less to say for themselves than the wood worlds torn to spare than now these numberless years the elves, although they are no less there. All song of the woods is crushed like some wild, easily shattered rose. Come, be my love in the wet woods. Come, where the boughs rain when it blows. There is the gale to urge behind, and brute are singing down. And the shallow waters aflutter with wind from which to gather your gown. What matter if we go clear to the west and come not through dry shod? For wilding brooch shall wet your breast the rain-fresh golden rod. O, never this whelming east wind swells, but it seems like the seas return to the ancient lands where it left the shells before the age of the fern. And it seems like the time when after doubt our love came back amane. O, come forth into the storm and rout, and be my love in the rain. October O, hushed October morning mild, thy leaves have ripened to the fall. Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild, should waste them all. The crows above the forest call, tomorrow they may form and go. O, hushed October morning mild, begin the hours of this day slow. Make the days seem to us less brief. It's not a verse to being beguiled. Beguil us in the way you know. Release one leaf at break of day, at noon release another leaf, one from our trees, one far away. Retard the sun with gentle mist, and chant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow. For the grapesake, if they were all, whose leaves already are burnt with frost, whose clustered fruit must else be lost, for the grapesake along the wall. My butterfly! Thine emulous fond flowers are dead too, and the daft sun assaulter he that frighted thee so oft is fled or dead. Save only me, nor is it sad to thee. Save only me there is none left to mourn thee in the fields. The grey grass is not dappled with the snow. Its two banks have not shot upon the river. But it is long ago. It seems forever, since first I saw the glance, with all the dazzling other ones, in airy dalliance, precipitate in love, tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above, like a limp rose wreath in a fairy-dance. When that was the soft mist of my regret hung not on all the land. And I was glad for thee, and glad for me, I wist. Thou didst not know who tottered, wandering on high, that fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind, with those great careless wings, nor yet did I. And there were other things. It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp, then fearful he had let thee win too far beyond him to be gathered in, snatched thee, or eager, with un-gentle grasp. Ah! I remember me how once conspiracy was rife against my life. The langer of it and the dreaming fond. Surging the grasses dizzyed me of thought. The breeze three odours brought, and a gem-flower waved in a wand. Then when I was distraught and could not speak, side-long, full on my cheek, what should that reckless zephyr fling but the wild touch of thy die-dusty wing? I found that wing broken to-day. For thou are dead, I said, and the strange birds say. I found it with the withered leaves, under the eaves. Reluctance Out through the fields and the woods and over the walls I have wended. I have climbed the hills of view and looked at the world and descended. I have come by the highway home, and lo it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, save those that the oak is keeping to rabble them one by one, and let them go scraping and creeping out over the crusted snow, when others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, no longer blown hither and thither. The last lone aster is gone. The flowers of the witch-hazel wither. The heart is still aching to seek, but the feet question wither. Ah! When to the heart of man was it ever less than a treason, to go with the drift of things, to yield with a grace to reason, and bow, and accept, and accept the end of a love or a season, end of part four, and end of a boy's will. Recording by Bill Borst