Quotes from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked,
And I hadn't been.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“Fireflies in the Garden
By Robert Frost 1874–1963

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“For, dear me, why abandon a belief,
Merely because it ceases to be true,
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt,
It will turn true again, for so it goes.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“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 ravel 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 'Whither?'

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 the end
Of a love or a season?”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“Lodged

"The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed.
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged -- though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“I could give all to Time except -- except
What I myself have held. But why declare
The things forbidden that while the Customs slept
I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,
And what I would not part with I have kept.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“The Telephone

When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't for I heard you say
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
Do you remember what it was you said '

'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.'

'Having found the flower and driven a bee away
I leaned my head
And holding by the stalk
I listened and I thought I caught the word
What was it
Did you call me by my name
Or did you say
Someone said "Come"
I heard it as I bowed.'

'I may have thought as much but not aloud.'

Well so I came.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“What but design of darkness to appall?- If design govern in a thing so small.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“He asked with the eyes more than the lips for a shelter for the night”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“...So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“Happiness Makes Up in Height For What It Lacks in Length

Oh, stormy stormy world,
The days you were not swirled
Around with mist and cloud,
Or wrapped as in a shroud,
And the sun’s brilliant ball
Was not in part or all
Obscured from mortal view—
Were days so very few
I can but wonder whence
I get the lasting sense
Of so much warmth and light.
If my mistrust is right
It may be altogether
From one day’s perfect weather,
When starting clear at dawn,
The day swept clearly on
To finish clear at eve.
I verily believe
My fair impression may
Be all from that one day
No shadow crossed but ours
As through its blazing flowers
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

“New' is a word for fools in towns who think / Style upon style in dress and thought at last / Must get somewhere.”
― Robert Frost, quote from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Collected Poems, Complete & Unabridged)

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