28. Good-by and Keep Cold / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost

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28. Good-By And Keep Cold

This saying good-by on the edge of the dark

And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark

Reminds me of all that can happen to harm

An orchard away at the end of the farm

All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.

I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,

I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse

By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.

(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call

I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall

And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.

(We made it secure against being, I hope,

By setting it out on a northerly slope.)

No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;

But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.

"How often already you've had to be told,

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below."

I have to be gone for a season or so.

My business awhile is with different trees,

Less carefully nurtured, less fruitful than these,

And such as is done to their wood with an ax―

Maples and birches and tamaracks.

I wish I could promise to lie in the night

And think of an orchard's arboreal plight

When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)

Its heart sinks lower under the sod.

But something has to be left to God.

• girdle : 껍찔을 고리모양으로 벗겨내다
• bud : 
• grouse : 들꿩
• tamarack : 아메리카낙옆송
• arboreal : 수목의
• sod : 잔디

잘 있어라 그리고 춥게 지내라

어둠과 추위의 문턱에서 껍질이 매우 여린

과수원 나무에 이렇게 이별의 인사를 하면

집과는 언덕 하나로 단절된 채, 겨우내

농장 끝에 멀리 떨어진 과수원 나무가

입을 수 있는 온갖 피해를 되새겨본다.

토끼와 쥐가 껍질을 벗겨먹지 않기를 원하고,

사슴이 황홀한 기분으로 뜯어먹지 않기 원하고,

뇌조가 그것의 꽃망울을 쪼지 않기를 원한다.

(소집하는 일이 헛되지 않을 것이 확실하다면

뇌조, 토끼, 그리고 사슴을 담장으로 소집해서

총 대신 막대기로 경고하여 쫓아버리고 싶다.)

그것이 태양의 열(熱)에 자극받지 않기를 원한다.

(우리가 그것을 북쪽 등성이에 심었으니,

바라건대, 태양의 열에는 안전하리라.)

차디찬 폭풍이 과수 나무에 더 나쁘지는 않으니,

한 가지 문제라면, 과수는 따뜻하면 절대 안 된다.

“여린 과수여, 이미 여러 번 네게 말했잖으냐,

춥게 지내라, 잘 있어라 그리고 춥게 지내라.

영하 50도 보다는 영상 50도를 더 두려워하라."

나는 한 계절 정도 떠나 있어야 한다.

그동안 나는 다른 나무들, 이것들보다

작은 정성으로 키워, 열매도 적었던 과수들,

그리고 목질에 도끼질을 한 그런 나무들―

단풍나무와 자작나무와 낙엽송들을 돌본다.

천천히 (그리고 등불 들고 오는 사람도 없는데)

과수의 심장이 점점 뗏장 밑으로 가라앉을 때

내가 밤에 누워서 과수원 과수의 시련을

생각하겠노라고 약속할 수 있기를 바란다.

그러나 어떤 일은 신의 뜻에 맡겨야 한다.

-신재실 옮김

단상(斷想): 인간의 도전에는 실패의 위험도 있고 한계도 있다. 이 시는 여린 과수가 긴 겨울의 시련들을 견딜 수 있을지 명상함으로써 인간이 벌이는 도전의 특성과 의의를 다룬다. 첫 5행은 껍질이 약한 과수를 추위와 각종 시련에 맞서도록 놓아둔 채 돌아서야 하는 농부의 염려를 진술한다. 이 진술은 어린 자식을 거친 세파에 내보내는 부모의 심경과 통하는 것으로 인간역정의 필연적 과정을 상기시키기에 충분하다. 그 다음에 이런 필연적 과정에서 일어날 수 있는 위해(危害)한 일들을 열거하고 있는데, 토끼, 쥐, 사슴 등이 여린 껍질을 갉아먹지 않을까 염려하지만 “총 대신 막대기로 경고하여 쫓아버리고 싶다”는 해학으로 우려를 간단히 물리친다.

그리고 가장 염려스러운 추위에 대해서는 오히려 추위가 아닌“태양의 열(熱)”에 자극받지 않기를 바란다든지, “북쪽 기슭”에 심어서 열의 위험을 예방했다든지, “차디찬 폭풍이 과수 나무에 더 나쁘지는 않다”는 역설(逆說)로 보호가 아닌 단련의 의의를 숙지한 노련의 지혜를 보인다. 따라서 화자가 원하는 것은 오히려 영상 50˚F 가 아니고 영하 50˚F라며, 나무에게“춥게 지내라”고 가르친다. 유전(流轉)의 흐름에 맹목적으로 편승하기를 거부하고 동정을 물리치는 적극적인 어조다.

장래의 성장을 위해 과일 나무를 돌보는 대신 충분한 단련의 기회를 확보하기로 한 화자는 결론부에서 감상적 자신과 자만에 빠지지 않고 사람이 모든 것을 다 통제할 수는 없다는 겸허한 인식에 도달한다. “심장이 점점 뗏장 밑으로 가라앉는”과수의 시련을 걱정하지 않겠다는 역설작인 생각은 자신의 무모한 행동에 대한 억지 변호가 아니라, 역사(役事)하는 자연의 양상을 잘 알고 있는 사람의 태도다.

그리고 “그러나 어떤 일은 신의 뜻에 맡겨야 한다.”는 끝말은 신은 계절의 변화와 존속을 통해 자신의 뜻을 밝힌다는 어떤 믿음과 인간의 한계성을 인식하면서, 동시에 모든 것을 신에게 맡기지는 않겠다는 의연한 실존의지의 표현이다.

-신재실 씀- 

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youtu.be/ZsvgW11Ra-E

youtu.be/JShXt0bR5r8

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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

Let’s say bravely…that poetry counts

On October 13, 1962, Mr. Frost was a participant in Mount Holyoke College’s observance of the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of its existence as an institution devoted to the education of women. And in the course of his remarks he pointed out that it was for him personally a time of celebration, too, this centering upon his having earlier in the year—on the occasion of his eighty-eighth birthday-published a new book of his poetry, entitledIn the Clearing.Also, he made reference to his visit to the Soviet Union, for the U. S. Department of State, which had taken place little more than a month earlier.

I’M GOING TOwrite a book on college presidents someday. I’ve known quite a lot of ’em. And I might tell you right now, the book’s going to turn on one sentence, with a semicolon in it, I guess: “The college presidents are to be divided into two kinds;”- (from my point of view and yours, too)- “those that have a conscientious concern for our things and those who have a weakness for them.” Our things, you know; can’t let ’em alone.

There’s quite a story to tell about it, make a little book that I threatened a long time to write. I started it on an occasion like this, once years ago—thought of it then, about the president I was with. He was resigning; one of the lovely ones who had a strong weakness for our things.

You see, I say “our things,” plural. I don’t say “my thing”-“our things.” And that brings me to the question of what I mean by “our things” and whose are they? I get asked about that a good many times as I kick around. I’ve been asked it twice the last two visits I’ve made.

I sit round sometimes with the boys afterward and the girls, and I get asked if poetry matters much in the world—(I got asked that in another country, even.)—and who does it matter to, if it matters to anybody?

And then they ask, “Does it matter more to women than to men?” Then, I always tell ’em that if I catch a man reading my book—red-handed, you know; guilty—catch him reading my book, he usually looks up and says, “My wife’s a great fan of yours.” Puts it off on the ladies.

Then, pressed further about that: “What you writing poetry for?” Well, like any other thing. Somebody asks me, in a religious way if it was a sort of “offering.” Yes, on the altar of something. (That makes you think, “Here’s a good Congregationalist; doesn’t mind some Old Testament in his life.”)

One of the greatest prayers in the world is the one—(I think maybe it’s repeated. I don’t know how many times. But it always stays in my mind as one of the big, big, big things in my life.)—the prayer, “May my sacrifice be acceptable in Thy sight.”45

That’s your life if you die on the battlefield. That’s your poem. That’s your everything. It means to sacrifice—means the whole of you, you know, into it-and still the fear of God. You see, that’s the fear of God-that it’s still a question: Is it acceptable in His sight?

What does that mean in our English language? Does what I do amount to anything? Does it count? And we don’t know. That’s where you launch off into your religion, with that prayer: May it count; may what I do count.

In Russia, I said the other day that I suppose the men of action in the world accorded poetry something, though they get far from it most of the time. But they accord a place.

And it’s similar to the place they accord women. They grant that women, in some sense of the word, “run” the world. And in that same sort of sense, they might grant that poetry does. Theymight smile at this claim of a poem you probably know that says:

• We, in the ages lying
• In the buried past of the earth,
• Built Nineveh with our sighing,
• And Babel itself with our mirth:
• And o’erthrew them with prophesying
• To the new of the old world’s worth;
• For each age is a dream that is dying…
• A dream, you see.—
• Or one that is coming to birth.23

That’s sort of the claim of it, its own claim. I leave that to you, and I leave that to the world. But I think the men might grant that, in the way they grant that women have really run the world—in the same way—and maybe that poetry might be called the “link place” between men and women, about all that, with the women having the strong hold on it at the one end. But those are just thoughts about it.

The boys are a great crowd to read to, talk to. And does poetry with me get more political with them? I sometimes get sick of the puny poetry that thinks money’s a bad thing and that men are a bad thing and that power is a bad thing.

I’ve been joking about liberals, so that I’ve got to write a book about them pretty soon, to satisfy people.

For instance, I say that a liberal is one who would rather fuss with a Gordian Knot than cut it. And then I could say, more seriously, that a liberal has his doubts about anything that’s arbitrary. He doesn’t realize that the height of it all is the arbitrary—even where we vote about every day of our lives; we vote, vote, vote, vote.

I’ve been with a head of a steel company—just brought me up here today—one of the steel companies. He’s chairman ofthe board now. He’s retired from the presidency and all that. But he’s a man who’s lived somewhat an arbitrary life. You ask him if his board ever tells him what to do or vote what to do. No, they just accept it when he tells them that he’s done it. He’s an arbitrary man.

The head of my publishing house confessed that. I search ’em; how much is voted—voted approval? (They say that a manly head of a big company said, “All those in favor say ‘aye’ the rest of you resign.” And that’s illiberal, you know.)

With me, this isn’t anything new at all. It runs all through my poems, if you notice them—for those that care about that sort of side of things, the political and all. The very life of the country, it depends something on that.

It says, “It shall wave” our flag—it says, “It shall wave a thousand years.”44So, it’s liberal and progressive to give the country away as fast as you can, before the thousand years are up. You see, spend it; see, give it all. Give it to the poor. Give it to the—Well, what shall I call ’em?

Sometimes I say aboutthemthat if I ran it—(I don’t run it, of course.)—if I ran the country, I wouldn’t run it to disembarrass the good-for-nothing, so as to make them think when they go on relief it’s an honorary degree. You see, there’s my leaning—though I’m a Democrat. (One thing you can say about the Democratic party is that there’s more kinds of Democrats to be than there are kinds of Republicans; it’s looser.)

And to finish up about all this and get to the poems; I think my poems belong to politics, religion, and history and all. And I hate to have that forgotten for a minute. And if I get into affairs of the world and feel pleased to be in ’em, it’s because I want my poetry to be like that.

I want it to count with men as much as with women. With women in their way; and men, probably it’s through women to men that I get there, a good deal, you know—a good deal.

I have a great experience of it. I’m very, very, very experienced and know all about it. I can tell a good deal by who puts the finger on the right word somewhere in the poetry—who says just one word in some one place.

I can’t tell by questionnaire. I’ve never found out anything by questionnaire. The liberals send around questionnaires. I never got out questionnaires, even when I was teaching. […]

I give somebody “A” for life if he says the right thing at the right moment about the right thing. And I give ’em “D” for life if they say just one wrong thing that shows they just don’t know what it’s all about. That’s all.

And it goes clear into your religion, your Bible. The height of religion is that prayer I said to you. That’s the fear of God that you hear liberals say you must get over. No fears at all; don’t have any fears anymore, children.

But you’d better be afraid of God, in that sense: You don’t know whether you count with Him. And a pagan would say, “It’s on the lap of the gods.” It means practically the same thing. Your fate is “on the lap of the gods”—and your acceptance, you know; what you write.

You’ve got to remember that, when I read you poems and things, that I read them in that fear of God. I’m not afraid of you. […]

Well, this is a celebration, sort of, of yours and one for me, too. I’ve got a new book, you know. I leaf over it myself, and if somebody mentions something in it—especially some boy or girl—that’s my favorite poem for the time being. I feel, “Oh, well, I’ll have another look at that; that’s a very good poem, isn’t it?”

But beyond all that is what I speak of, the fear of God.—Does it count? And how does it count?

Just one word more: how it counts. It counts, if it counts, somewhat politically.

Again, to make a rather amusing distinction, there’s twothings; there’s grievance and grief. A grievance is something that something can be done about, political sort of a thing. That’s politics, statescraft, everything—grievances to correct and handle. And grief is in the lines that I’ve said to some a number of times lately. Out of the fifteenth century, I guess it is. It says:

• I know my life’s a pain and but a span;
• I know my sense is mock’d in everything;
• And, to conclude, I know myself a Man—
• Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.4

That’s a grief. That’s the grief of it that stays there. And poetry has a happy-sad way of talking about that a lot of the time. There’s a song—(A college song, I think it is.)—that struck me years ago. I don’t know it very well. But it had for a refrain in it, about drink, that it would “make you happy, make you sad.” Happy-sad; that’s the poetry of it. That’s the grief of it: the brevity of our life, the span, and our not knowing what’s still bothering us. And the poetry deals with that. But also it comes into reforms.

I think when I’m asked if it counts very much, if it does much,—(Does it go in for reforms? Is it in favor of doing this or that?)—it’s a lower class of poetry that gets down to politics. And when I get down to politics, I know I’m sort of a little shallower. It’s deeper when it’s with the happy-sad. […]

Well, leave that; leave it a little happy-sad—sometimes with tears. Isn’t this odd, that in that poem—

• We, in the ages lying
  In the buried past of the earth,
• Built Nineveh with our sighing,
• And Babel itself with our mirth….23

there are the two things again? But why he gave them to Nineveh and Babylon, I’ve always wondered. Was Nineveh a sad place? Were they a sophisticated sad city, with that kind of beautiful melancholy touch? Was their beauty that kind? And was the other a sort of riotous mirth, you know, coarser lower-class?

In poetry, they really blend. But it’s a pretty thing, that pairing again in Babel and Nineveh—mirth and sadness—isn’t it? They’re there. And the strangest blend of all, the wonderfulest thing of all, is the happy-sad blend of just that sort of low-class song about drink:

• Sadly thinking,
• with…
• Let’s see.—
• With spirits sinking…
• Let’s see if I can say that poem.—
• Sadly thinking,
• With spirits sinking,
• Would more than drinking
• My cares compose—
• A cure for sorrow
• From sighs I’d borrow;
• And hope tomorrow
• Would end my woes.
• But since in wailing
• There’s naught availing,
• And Death, unfailing,
• Will strike the blow;
• Then, for this reason,
• And for a season,
• Let us be merry
• Before we go!…46

That’s an Irish one, in this same play with all that. Well, I’m tempted to linger about it all. I’ve seen so much about it lately, the pros and cons of it all.

Let’s say bravely, we girls, that poetry counts. Not necessarily mine, but it counts.

—at New York University,
March23,1956:

NEARLY EVERYTHINGI get into is unpremeditated. That’s my happy life, fortunate life.

I’m just academic enough, you know, to be a teacher. And I’m just farmer enough to be a farmer. And I’m just poet enough, I guess, to be called a poet.

I never got called that till I was forty. And I was embarrassed when I was first called it, though I’d been writing for twenty years. But all of it’s been kind of haphazard and accidental.

Somebody asked me once, when I began to make up my mind that I’d write poetry. I said I never dared to let anybody know I’d made up my mind, if I had. It was more or less my own private affair; and I went ahead and wrote little poems. I wrote ’em because I couldn’t let ’em alone, because I fell into rhyme and metre at the age of fifteen, in a high school where there was no English taught. […]

I had no courses in English. All I had was Latin and Greek and mathematics and a little tiny bit of history. But the whole course of high school and college to me was just Latin and Greek and mathematics; no English at all.