13. A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears and Some Books

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13. A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears and Some Books / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost

Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain

In Dalton that would someday make his fortune.

There'd been some Boston people out to see it:

And experts said that deep down in the mountain

The mica sheets were big as plate-glass windows.

He'd like to take me there and show it to me.

mica : 운모, 작은

"I'll tell you what you show me. You remember

You said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman,

The early Mormons made a settlement

And built a stone baptismal font outdoors―

But Smith, or someone, called them off the mountain

To go West to a worse fight with the desert.

You said you'd seen the stone baptismal font.

Well, take me there."

baptismal : 세례의

font : 성수반

                      "Someday I will."

                                      "Today."

"Huh, that old bathtub, what is that to see?

Let's talk about it."

                    "Let's go see the place."

"To shut you up I'll tell you what I'll do:

I'll find that fountain if it takes all summer,

And both of our united strengths, to do it."

"You've lost it, then?"

                     "Not so but I can find it.

No doubt it's grown up some to woods around it.

The mountain may have shifted since I saw it

In eighty-five."

               "As long ago as that?"

"If I remember rightly, it had sprung

A leak and emptied then. And forty years

Can do a good deal to bad masonry.

You won't see any Mormon swimming in it.

But you have said it, and we're off to find it.

Old as I am, I'm going to let myself

Be dragged by you all over everywhere―"

masonry : 석조

"I thought you were a guide."

                             "I am a guide,

And that's why I can't decently refuse you."

We made a day of it out of the world,

Ascending to descend to reascend.

The old man seriously took his bearings,

And spoke his doubts in every open place.

We came out on a look-off where we faced

A cliff, and on the cliff a bottle painted,

Or stained by vegetation from above,

A likeness to surprise the thrilly tourist.

"Well, if I haven't brought you to the fountain,

At least I've brought you to the famous Bottle."

"I won't accept the substitute. It' empty."

"So's everything."

                   "I want my fountain."

"I guess you'd find the fountain just as empty.

And anyway this tells me where I am."

"Hadn't you long suspected where you were?"

"You mean miles from that Mormon settlement?

Look here, you treat your guide with due respect

If you don't want to spend the night outdoors.

I vow we must be near the place from where

The two converging slides, the avalanches,

On Marshall, look like donkey's ears.

We may as well see that and save the day."

"Don't donkey's ears suggest we shake our own?"

"For God's sake, aren't you fond of viewing nature?

You don't like nature. All you like is books.

What signify a donkey's ears and bottle,

However natural? Give you your books!

Well then, right here is where I show you books.

Come straight down off this mountain just as fast

As we can fall and keep a-bouncing on our feet.

It's hell for knees unless done hell-for-leather."

Be ready, I thought, for almost anything.

We struck a road I didn't recognize,

But welcomed for the chance to lave my shoes

In dust once more. We followed this a mile,

Perhaps, to where it ended at a house

I didn't know was there. It was the kind

To bring me to for broad-board paneling.

I never saw so good a house deserted.

lave : 담구다

"Excuse me if I ask you in a window

That happens to be broken," Davis said.

"The outside doors as yet have held against us.

I want to introduce you to the people

Who used to live here. They were Robinsons.

You must have heard of Clara Robinson,

The poetess who wrote the book of verses

And had it published. It was all about

The posies on her inner windowsill,

And the birds on her outer windowsill,

And how she tended both, or had them tended:

She never tended anything herself.

She was 'shut in' for life. She lived her whole

Life long in bed, and wrote her things in bed.

I'll show you how she had her sills extended

To entertain the birds and hold the flowers.

Our business first's up attic with her books."

posies : 꽃, 꽃다발

We trod uncomfortably on crumbling glass

Through a house stripped of everything

Except, it seemed, the poetess's poems.

Books, I should say!―if books are what is needed.

A whole edition in a packing case

That, overflowing like a horn of plenty,

Or like the poetess's heart of love,

Had spilled them near the window, toward the light,

Where driven rain had wet and swollen them.

Enough to stock a village library―

Unfortunately all of one kind, though.

They had been brought home from some publisher

And taken thus into the family.

Boys and bad hunters had known what to do

With stone and lead to unprotected glass:

Shatter it inward on the unswept floors.

How had the tender verse escaped their outrage?

By being invisible for what it was,

Or else by some remoteness that defied them

To find out what to do to hurt a poem.

Yet oh! the tempting flatness of a book,

To send it sailing out the attic window

Till it caught wind and, opening out its covers,

Tried to improve on sailing like a tile

By flying like a bird (silent in flight,

But all the burden of its body song),

Only to tumble like a stricken bird,

And lie in stones and bushes unretrieved.

Books were not thrown irreverently about.

They simply lay where someone now and then,

Having tried one, had dropped it at his feet

And left it lying where it fell rejected.

Here were all those the poetess's life

Had been too short to sell or give away.

"Take one," Old Davis bade me graciously.

"Why not take two or three?"

                                "Take all you want.

Good-looking books like that." He picked one fresh

In virgin wrapper from deep in the box,

And stroked it with a horny-handed kindness.

He read in one and I read in another,

Both either looking for or finding something.

The attic wasps went missing by like bullets.

I was soon satisfied for the time being.

All the way home I kept remembering

The small book in my pocket. It was there.

The poetess had sighed, I knew, in heaven

At having eased her heart of one more copy―

Legitimately. My demand upon her,

Though slight, was a demand. She felt the tug.

In time she would be rid of all her books.

tug : 잡아당기다, 당김감

샘터, 병, 당나귀 귀와 약간의 책들

데이비스 영감은 언젠가 떼돈을 벌게 될

진짜 운모 산을 돌턴에 가지고 있었다.

보스턴 사람들이 그것을 둘러보러 왔었다.

전문가들의 말에 의하면 그 산 속 깊은 곳에는

판유리 창문만큼이나 큰 운모판이 매장되었다고 한다.

그는 나를 데리고 가서 그것을 보여주고 싶어 했다.

"제게 안내해주실 곳을 말씀드리죠. 초기 모르몬들이

언젠가 킨스먼 산에 정착해서 야외에

석조 침례조(浸禮槽)를 축조했다는 곳을

영감님이 아신다고 말씀하신 것 기억하시죠―

그런데 스미스인가 하는 사람이 그들을 산에서 데리고 나와

서쪽으로 가는 바람에 더 험난한 사막과의 싸움을 했다지요.

영감님께서 그 석조 침례조(浸禮槽)를 보셨다고 말씀하셨지요.

저, 저를 그곳으로 데려가 주세요."

                          "훗날 안내하지."

                                            "오늘요."

"허, 그런 낡은 욕조(浴槽), 그게 구경거리가 될까?

그것에 대한 이야기를 하기로 하지."

                          "그곳을 보러 가시지요."

"자네의 입을 막기 위해 내가 무얼 할지 말하겠네.

문제의 샘터를 찾기 위해 우리 둘의 힘을 합쳐서,

여름을 다 보낸다 해도, 기어코 그것을 찾고 말걸세.”

"그럼, 그 위치를 잊으셨나요?"

                  "그런 건 아니니 찾을 수 있네.

틀림없이 주변에 나무가 자라서 숲이 되었을 거야.

내가 85 년에 그것을 본 이후

산이 달라졌을 것이고."

                "그토록 오래 전 일인가요?"

"내 기억이 옳다면, 물이 새는 구멍이 생겨서

샘터가 말라버리고 말았지. 그리고 40년 동안에

엉터리 석조물에 많은 변화가 생겼을 수도 있고.

이제 그 안에서 모르몬이 헤엄치는 것도 못 볼 것이고.

하지만 자네가 그걸 말했으니, 그걸 찾아보기로 하세.

내가 늙긴 했지만, 자네가 가자고 하는 곳이면

어느 곳이나 마다하지 않고 갈 것이네―"

"영감님이 안내자이신 걸로 생각했는데요."

                                "물론 내가 안내자지.

그래서 내가 자네의 말을 점잖게 거절하지 못하는 걸세."

우리는 오르고 내려오고 또 오르며,

세상을 떠나서 하루를 보냈다.

영감님은 내내 진지한 태도를 보였고,

열린 공간에서는 으레 여러 의문을 제기했다.

우리는 어떤 망대(望臺)로 나왔는데 그 맞은편에

절벽이 보였고, 그 위에 병 같은 것이 보이는데,

절벽 위의 식물이 그리거나, 아니면 채색한 듯,

병과 꼭 닮은 모습에 놀란 나그네를 설레게 했다.

"자, 자네를 그 샘터로 인도하진 않았지만,

적어도 그 유명한 병까지는 인도했네."

"저는 대용품은 인정하지 않습니다. 그건 비어있습니다."

"모든 게 비어있지."

               "저는 샘터를 보고 싶습니다."

"그 샘터도 아마 똑같이 비어있을 것일세.

어쨌든 이것으로 현재의 내 위치를 알겠군."

"계신 곳을 한참동안 모르셨던 모양이죠?"

"그 모르몬 정착지에서 한참 벗어났다는 뜻인가?

이거 보게, 오늘밤 야외에서 보내고 싶지 않으면

자네의 안내인을 정중하게 모시게나.

우리가 있는 곳은 틀림없이 마셜 봉에서

산사태로 쏟아져 내린 두 무더기 토석류(土石流)들이,

당나귀의 두 귀를 빼닮듯이, 합류한 곳 근처일 거야.

그것이나 보면서 오늘의 의미를 찾는 게 좋겠네."

"당나귀 귀는 당나귀 귀고 우리는 우리 귀를 흔들어야 하겠죠?"

"맙소사, 자네는 자연 감상을 별로 좋아하지 않는 거야?

자네는 자연을 좋아하지 않는군. 책만 좋아하는가?

당나귀 귀와 병이 무슨 뜻이 있겠나?

아무리 자연스러운들 말이야. 자네에겐 책이 제일이지.

자 그렇다면, 자네에게 보여줄 책이 바로 여기 있네.

곤두박질하듯 껑충껑충 계속 달려서 가능한 빨리

이 산을 곧바로 내려가기만 하면 되네.

전속력으로 닫지 않으면 무릎이 혹사당하는 거야."

각오를 단단히 해야겠다고, 나는 생각했다.

우리는 내가 알지 못하는 어떤 길에 당도했지만,

나는 다시 한 번 흙속에 내 구두를 담글 수 있는

기회가 반가웠다. 우리가 이 길을 1마일쯤 가니까,

거기 있는 줄을 모르고 있던 어느 집에서

그 길이 끝났다. 넓은 판자 장식 견학차

나를 일부러 데려온 그런 집인 듯했다.

그렇게 좋은 집이 버려진 것은 생전 처음 보았다.

"마침 창문이 하나 깨졌으니 미안하지만

그 창문으로 들어오게,”데이비스가 말했다.

"바깥 대문으로는 아직 출입을 못하거든.

여기서 살던 사람들을 자네에게 소개하고 싶네.

로빈슨가(家)가 사람들이 살았지.

클라라 로빈슨을 틀림없이 들었겠지.

시집을 써서 출판한 여류 시인이었지.

시는 모두 실내 창턱 위의 꽃들,

그리고 실외 창턱 위의 새들,

그리고 그 둘을 그녀가 어떻게 돌보았는지,

또는 돌보게 했는지에 관한 것이었지.

사실 그녀는 무엇을 손수 돌본 적이 없었어.

그녀는 평생 '갇혀' 있었지. 긴 평생을

전부 침대에서 살면서, 침대에서 글을 썼지.

새들을 환대하고 꽃들을 놓기 위해서

그녀가 어떻게 창턱을 넓혔는지 보여주겠네.

우선 우리가 할 일은 다락 위, 그녀의 책들이야."

우리는 유리를 자박자박 불안스레 밟으며,

보기에, 그 여류 시인의 시들 이외에는,

모든 것이 발가벗겨진 집을 두루 살폈다.

필요한 게 책이라면, 외쳐야 하리라―와, 책이다!

초판본 전부가 담긴 포장용 상자가 풍요의 뿔처럼,

아니면 그 여류 시인의 사랑의 가슴처럼,

흘러넘쳐서, 책들이 창문 근처,

햇빛 드는 쪽에 널브러진 채,

뿌려진 비에 젖어 부풀어져 있었다.

한 마을의 장서를 비치하기에 충분한 공간이다―

하지만, 불행하게도 한 종류의 책만 간직하고 있다.

어느 출판사에서 집으로 가져와서

이처럼 가족으로 편입된 셈이다.

소년들과 나쁜 사냥꾼들이 돌과 탄환으로

방비 없는 유리창을 어떻게 할지 알았기에,

안쪽으로 박살내서 쓸지 않은 바닥에 떨어뜨렸다.

연약(軟弱)한 시는 그들의 폭력을 어떻게 피했을까?

시이기 때문에 눈에 보이지 않았기 때문이거나,

어떻게 하면 시를 다치게 할지 발견할 수 있으면

한 번 해보라며 맞서는 어떤 초연(超然) 때문일 거다.

그러나 오! 책이 얄팍한 것이, 배를 띄우 듯

다락 창문 밖으로 휙 날려 보내고프기는,

그것이 바람을 잡아서, 제 표지들을 활짝 펴고,

새처럼 비행함으로써, 기왓장처럼 항해는 것을

능가하려고 노력하다가 (침묵의 비행이지만,

온몸으로 노래를 싣고), 끝내 탄환 맞은 새처럼

공중제비 하여 돌과 덤불 속에 떨어져

회수되지 않은 채 누워있을 것이다.

책들은 여기저기 무례하게 팽개쳐지지는 않았다.

그것들은 누군가가 가끔씩 한권씩 집었다가,

발밑에 떨어뜨리고, 퇴짜 맡고 떨어진 자리에

버리고 떠난 곳에 그 모양 그대로 놓여있었다.

그 여류 시인의 삶이 너무 짧아서 팔거나

주어버리지 못한 모든 것이 여기 있었다.

"한권 가져가지." 데이비스 영감이 관대하게 말했다.

"두 권이나 세 권은 안 되나요?"

                          "원하는 대로 가져가게.

보다시피 멋진 책들이니까." 그는 상자 깊숙이에서

산뜻한 포장지에 쌓인 새 책 한 권을 꺼내더니,

그것을 거칠고 투박한 손으로 다정하게 쓰다듬었다.

그도 한 책을 읽고 나도 다른 책을 읽은 것은,

둘 다 무엇인가를 찾거나 발견하려는 것이었다.

다락의 말벌들이 탄환처럼 휙 스치듯 지나갔다.

나는 곧 한동안 만족스러웠다.

귀갓길 내내 나는 내 주머니 속의

작은 책을 기억했다. 그게 거기 있었다.

그 여류 시인은 그녀의 가슴에서 한 권 더,

그것도 합법적으로, 지워버렸으니 하늘에서

한숨 돌렸으리라―그녀에 대한 나의 수요(需要)는,

비록 작아도, 엄연한 수요였다. 그녀는 그 수요를 느꼈다.

조만간 그녀는 그녀의 모든 책에서 해방될 것이다.

-신재실 옮김-

단상(斷想): 화자는 모르몬 유적지 탐색에 나선다. 그러나 그의 안내자는 “언젠가 떼돈을 벌게 될”자기 소유의 “진짜 운모 산”을 보여주려고 한다. 화자는 모르몬들이 석조 침례조(浸禮槽)를 축조했던 샘터에 더 많은 관심을 보인다. 상업적 가치를 중시하는 안내자와 문화적 가치를 중시하는 화자의 차별성이 드러난다. 기분이 상한 안내자는 그곳에 가겠다고 다짐하면서도, 일부러 산을 오르내리며 병이나 당나귀 귀 모양 등을 닮은 자연 경관으로 안내한다.

이것저것 보여줘도 시큰둥한 화자가 안내자는 짜증스럽다. “자네는 자연 감상을 별로 좋아하지 않는 거야?/ 자네는 자연을 좋아하지 않는군. 책만 좋아하는가?/ 당나귀 귀와 병이 무슨 뜻이 있겠나?/ 아무리 자연스러운들 말이야. 자네에겐 책이 제일이지./ 자 그렇다면, 자네에게 보여줄 책이 바로 여기 있네.”안내자의 심사가 뒤틀려 있다. 안내자는 엉뚱하게도 화자를 숲속의 버려진 집으로 안내한다. 아주 멋진 집이 버려진 채 쇠퇴하고 있다.

여류 시인 클라라 로빈슨이 살던 집이다. 그녀는 꽃과 새들을 바라보며, “침대에서 살면서, 침대에서 글을 썼다.”지금 시인의 시집은 먼지투성이의 다락에서 잠잔다. “여기저기 무례하게 팽개쳐지지는” 않았지만, “누군가가 가끔씩 한권씩 집었다가,/ 발밑에 떨어뜨리고, 퇴짜 맡고 떨어진 자리에/ 버리고 떠난 곳에 그 모양 그대로 놓여있었다.”화자는 “배를 띄우 듯” 시집들을 “다락 창문 밖으로 휙 날려 보내고 싶다.” “온몸으로 노래를 싣고”하늘을 비행하는 시집들을 보고프지만, “끝내 탄환 맞은 새처럼/ 공중제비 하여 돌과 덤불 속에 떨어져/ 회수되지 않은 채 누워있을 것이다.” 꽃과 새가 함께 노래하던 시절은 이제 끝났다.

화자는 시집 한 권을 소중하게 주머니에 넣는다. 마침내 시집 한 권이 그 가치를 아는 사람의 수중에 들어갔다. 시인은 하늘에서 안도의 한숨을 쉴 것이다. “그녀에 대한 나의 수요(需要)는,/ 비록 작아도, 엄연한 수요였다. 그녀는 그 수요를 느꼈다.”아마도 화자는 20세기 모더니즘의 소용돌이에서 19세기의 감상적 낭만주의 시에 향수를 느끼는 거의 유일한 시인일지 모른다. 도시지향의 모더니즘 시대에 농촌지향의 전원시를 즐겨 썼던 포르스트의 딜레마를 표출하는 것 같기도 하다.

마지막 행, “조만간 그녀는 그녀의 모든 책에서 해방될 것이다.”는 어떤 의미일까? 한 권 이외의 나머지 책들도 모두 필요한 사람의 수중에 들어갈 것이란 뜻일까? 화자는 안내자의 운모 산을 구경하기를 거부했고, 또한 안내자가 대신 안내한 자연경관―병, 당나귀 귀들―에 대해서도, "저는 대용품은 인정하지 않습니다. 그건 비어있습니다,"라고 말함으로써 그 가치를 인정하지 않았다. 안내자와 달리 현재의 화자에게 가치 있는 것은 모르몬의 “샘터”이다. 시집들 또한 대부분의 사람들에게는 가치가 없기에, 팔리지 않고, 읽히지 않는 것 아닐까? 하늘에 계신 시인은 어쩌면 한 사람의 수요자로 만족할 것 아닌가? 그러기에 이제 그녀는 나머지 시집의 부담에서도 “해방될 것이다.” 가치를 모르는 사람에게는 모든 것이 무의미할 것이며, 그 가치를 안다면 단 한사람으로도 만족할 수 있지 않을까?

-신재실 씀-

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youtu.be/QeiKY6h23Bk

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ROBERT FROST
 SPEAKING ON CAMPUS

Contents

 Introduction
 Getting up things to say for yourself
 Where poetry comes in
 Handling figures of speech
 “Anxiety for the Liberal Arts”
 A book side to everything
 Not freedom from, but freedom of
 Of rapid reading and what we call “completion”
 No surprise to me, no surprise to anybody else
 Pieces of knitting to go on with
 Everything in the world comes in pairs
 My kind of fooling
 About “the great misgiving”
 Wondering how convictions are had
 Something you live by till you live by something else
 Some gamble—something of uncertainty
 The future of the world
 Hang around for the refinement of sentiment
 What I think I’m doing when I write a poem
 Of the “elect” and the “elected”
 Fall in love at sight
 Thinking about generalizations
 “In on the Ground Floor”
 A certain restlessness
 About thinking and of perishing to shine
 A gentler interest in the fine things
 Let’s say bravely…that poetry counts
 I’ll tell you a little about my walks
 Editor’s Note

 References

My kind of fooling

In an appearance at Harvard University on December 3, 1956, held under the auspices of its Morris Gray Poetry Fund, Mr. Frost made near the beginning of his remarks a reference to the celebrated portrait painter Charles Hopkinson (1869–1962), who lived in the North Shore area of Massachusetts and maintained a studio at Boston.

ITHOUGHTI would begin today in a way I heard another poet friend of mine begin once. He said, “This is the first time I have declared myself in public on the subject of—” Well I’ve changed the subject; never mind what his subject was. But this is the first time I have declared myself in public on the subject of whom I’m writing these poems for.

This was brought up in my mind by Mr. Hopkinson, the artist. He asked me how near I felt to the audience I’m writing to. And he meant me to ask him how near he felt to the man whose portrait he was painting. That’s pretty close up, isn’t it? Mine is certainly more remote than that. […]

But it’s a question that I’m often asked: who I’m writing the poems for.

Some singer said the other day—in answer to the question which she liked of her own songs best—she said, “The one you like.” Nice answer.

Which one of my poems do I like best? The one I heard last praised. And that’s no jest, though you laugh. It’s true that I am very happy about a poem for a few hours after I’ve heard it praised, quite a little while—maybe all night; sleep well on it.

But when you ask me further, I think I can say. I can giveyou some idea. I wrote it for all the nice people I’ve been thrown with. And I’ve been thrown with some pretty nice ones, intelligent and free and happy—know how to take my kind of play in conversation.

Probably my education was in conversation, all the way along, without my knowing it. I said in verse somewhere:

• It takes a lot of in- and outdoor schooling
• To be admitted to my kind of fooling.26

I certainly write for what you might call “a cloud of witnesses,” a cloud of people that I’ve been thrown with—not definitely for any person or any kind of person. I certainly don’t write for the kind of people that enjoy looking up my references. Not particularly for them; I don’t mind them.

But suppose, as in one poem I’m going to read you today, I mention “Igdrasil.” I’d rather you didn’t have to look it up. I’d rather; that’s just preference.

I do this on a percentage basis, as I often say. Some get one thing and some another. But the things you get on the spot are the things that I want you to get, that I enjoy your getting most. The pleasure I have is from the things you respond to at once.

Now, do I write the poems to read them aloud? I write them to my ear, certainly, my own ear. I write them to the ear—(I would hate to admit I didn’t.)—that before anything else, probably. So, it ought to be that I write them to be read aloud.

But I recognize a considerable difference. Some of them I don’t dare to read aloud. They’re too intimate maybe or too something, you know. I have a feeling that they’d be helped by your seeing them, as well as hearing them.

In fact, I went so far once as to get my publishers to make me a little pamphlet of half a dozen of them, that I could distribute to an audience at the door—give out at the door—sothat people would have the help of the eye in hearing me read them. And the trouble with that was everybody wanted my autograph on them afterward. That had to be stopped; didn’t go any further, one audience.

But the great thing is my metaphor. That’s my kind of fooling. That’s what I mean by “my kind of fooling”—my kind of metaphor, my kind of double meaning, double entendre, intimation, innuendo, insinuation, simile; anything you want to call it. (“Symbol” is the dread word you were waiting for!) And I suppose each has his own kind.

I understand that over at Technology now they’ve introduced a whole lot of cultural courses. Fifty percent now, you can take going through there, fifty percent cultural. And that’s so’s to get ’em ready for my kind of fooling. That must be it. And that means my kind of play with the metaphor.

I encountered one of them, head on, the other day, one of the M.I.T. scientists; interesting man. We tried to come to an understanding about the metaphor. And we didn’t succeed, not very well. It would take more time. He felt a little standoffish with me, suspicious of me.

I claimed that all science—everything, all advances in everything—rested on this little expression‎ you can make a singsong out of: “How she differs from what she’s like.” You see, “How she differs from what she’s like.”

The order, you know, would be “what she’s like,” first. And then where the metaphor breaks down is where the progress is. That’s the way science is advanced, I’m sure. But that was news to him. Probably we’d mean the same thing after an hour or two of it; didn’t have long enough.

His great difficulty about poetry was—and regular verse—was that it purposely “handicapped” itself. I didn’t say to him, but right away he’s used a metaphor, hasn’t he: handicap? And a bad one and a vulgar one!

You see, that’s what that is: that I assume the responsibilities of form, as in any game or as anywhere you look.

For instance, is it a handicap in a race to say that it shall be a mile long? No, that’s not a handicap, is it? That would be a dreadful use of it. There’s the mile, two miles, the hundred yards, and so on.

Those are forms—no handicap to be thought of, unless there’s somebody butts in to place one person two or three feet ahead of somebody else, as in a Sunday-school picnic. In the horse races they do. It hurts all that. That’s handicapping.

But he brought that into the whole thing. He said, “Whydoyou rhyme, then, and whydoyou use metre?” I said, “From the craving I have for form—for something that rounds it out, that shapes, you know.”

But he still said he thought that I was handicapping myself. I said, “Well, I’m handicapping myself, if you want to put it that way, in using the English language.” You see, all those words, why should I use them? […]

I said: “You don’t come into the world to find out whether it’s a good world or not. You come into it to find out whether you’re any goodat it—to try yourself; not to try the world, but to try yourself—just as you come onto a tennis court not to find out whether it’s a good court, but to find out whether you can play tennis.”

He couldn’t say much to that. He couldn’t say “handicap” to that. That broke down his metaphor.

Well, that’s the whole story.

I’d like to say one thing more that I care about. I wish in all my poems that people listen to, that they hear something of the voice—more than the words, more than the vowels and the consonants—something that changes in every sentence and something that I like to think no notation could indicate; there’s no help for it but the context of the story or the verse.

Suppose I just show you—away from a poem—a little case of it. I asked a friend of mine if another friend of mine was really crazy. And he said, “Well, you know.”

You see, now that’s enough. I knew a lot from that tone when he said, “Well, you know.” You see? Now, how much more do I need to add to that? That tone does it.

Somebody said, “Well, if it were me, I would have run this campaign in another way.” He thought a minute, and he said, “I would havewinkedat what the French and British and Jews were doing.” See, all the tone of that, where he sounded very wicked. (I would have winked, too. Talking politics now!)

Let’s see if I think of another one. Milton says somewhere, makes one of the brothers say——

Oh, say, just speaking of Milton, do you suppose Milton wrote all that stuff so you’d have to look up a lot of things in it? You know, I don’t assume that he did. But I don’t feel sure of him. I’m sure Shakespeare didn’t write anything for you to look anything up about. And I’m sure Chaucer didn’t.

I can’t think of writing purposely to have anybody look anything up. I’m not sure of Milton. You see the way I say that, too, you know—humbly. I don’t suppose I know. I’m among a lot of scholars here.

I was going to give you an example from Milton. One of the brothers says to another two nice questions, such natural questions that they break in on you in the middle of a great deal of sort of almost pompous English. But it says in one place, “Shall I go on?”—one brother says to the other—“Shall I go on? / Or have I said enough?”27

What two pretty questions those are, for their tone of voice. They’re right in the blank verse, too. “Shall I go on?” I say to you—(I said that once in class years ago, and I said it so naturally that one of the boys said, “Go on.”)—“Shall I go on? / Or have I said enough?”

Take another place in Milton—(I like to take Milton, because it is on that high plane. You won’t think it’s colloquial ever.)—he says:

• Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
• That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
• Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

And then he says:

• Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse….

That sentence always delighted me:

• Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse….28

Don’t say you’ve got a cold. Or don’t say you can’t sing. Or don’t say you can’t please us. It’s in Shakespeare you get that, you know. He says, “I know I can’t please you.” And the other fellow says, with a beautiful tone of voice, “We don’t ask you to please us.” He says, “We just ask you to sing.”29

It’s all that play of those tones that I like to think people are hearing when I read to them or when they read me themselves. It’s a great temptation to go colloquial, just on that account. I remember an old colloquial poem about an old woman who was asked if she was ready to die. And she says, “As ready as I’ll ever be, I reckon.”—“As ready as I’ll ever be, I reckon.”30Just hear it.

Now I’m going to read to you. But one of the things they say to me is, “You don’t dare to read ’em new things.” (Did I write ’em to read ’em right off, or did I write for them to get around in the anthologies first, so they’ll get ready for me to read ’em aloud?) So, I’m going to take my courage in hand today. This is the first time I’ve done that on a challenge. I’m going to dare to read you something a little too new to be read.

All right? Not the first thing, I’ll start with something else.I don’t want to go back to the old ones. I want to take some of the later ones.

Oh, I tell you one. I will go back to one early one, for this reason. It has in it the real line of why I write the poems. Do I write ’em for me? Do I write ’em for you? Or do I write ’em into the wastebasket?

You know, I never could decide that. This poem will help you, make you see, I think. […]

This is a little farming poem that has in it one line that gives you my position, probably, all the years of my life. I wrote it back in the nineties—fifty years ago, anyway, and maybe more. It’s about mowing in the morning.

The mower in the morning mowed when the grass was wet, with his scythe, because it made the cutting easier—just as shaving is easier when ’tisn’t dry. And I came after the mower in the dew, as a boy, and I tossed the grass out to dry in the sun, shake the dew out of it and open it up to the sun. And that’s the surface of it.

It’s called, though, “A Tuft of Flowers.” You see, what’s that doing in the mowing poem, a tuft of flowers? That’s the real secret of it all. […]

• [Mr. Frost said the opening twenty-six lines of “The Tuft of Flowers” then, interjected:]

And this is the place:

• Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
• But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

That’s the source of it all. I’ll finish the poem, but that’s where I wanted to get you.—

• The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
• By leaving them to flourish, not for us…

That’s the way the poems are written.—

• Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
• But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. .

[Mr. Frost then completed his saying of the poem.]

—at Emerson College, May 7, 1959:

ISUPPOSEI ought to say something about poetry and its audibility, its being heard. Someone told me the other day that we’ve got to get the resonance out of poetry. And I think that’d be the end of poetry.

If they want to get it out, they should write it as algebraic equations. There’d be no resonance in them. (And it’s getting down to that, somewhat.)

But when resonance goes, I go. My interest has always been to the ear first.

Of course, much depends on the thought.

One danger is of thinking that by sound and resonance we mean vowels and consonants and all that. We mean the tones of meaning that come from having ideas.

—at Princeton University, December 5, 1956:

ONE THINGI like to be in this world is so sweeping—you see, get along so sweepingly—that I can’t fall down.

And I don’t want to get bogged down with thoroughness, do I? And I don’t want to get kind of lost—(Bewildered, you might say.)—bewildered with diffuseness.