The west was getting out of gold, 
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.

In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on a bough,
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.

From my advantage on a hill
I judged that such a crystal chill
Was only adding frost to snow
As gilt to gold that wouldn't show.

A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke
From north to south across the blue;
A piercing little star was through.

It may be “un-literary” to admit, but part of the joy of reading Robert Frost’s poems are that they rhyme. Copying them out gives you the feeling of transcribing song lyrics into your 6th grade Mead Composition notebook.

My favorite bit from this poem is when Frost briefly takes us back to summer in the second stanza, before for dropping us off in winter again three lines later. Brilliant how he fits that glimpse of summer in to give us the context of the present emptiness of that place.

Merry Christmas dear readers!

Frost, Robert. New Hampshire. United States, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2019. pg100