Poems of Robert Frost. Large Collection, includes A Boy's Will, North of Boston and Mountain Interval (9 page)

And see if you can reckon our cousinship.

Why not take seats here on the cellar wall

And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?”

“Under the shelter of the family tree.”

“Just so—that ought to be enough protection.”

“Not from the rain. I think it’s going to rain.”

“It’s raining.”

“No, it’s misting; let’s be fair.

Does the rain seem to you to cool the eyes?”

The situation was like this: the road

Bowed outward on the mountain half-way up,

And disappeared and ended not far off.

No one went home that way. The only house

Beyond where they were was a shattered seedpod.

And below roared a brook hidden in trees,

The sound of which was silence for the place.

This he sat listening to till she gave judgment.

“On father’s side, it seems, we’re—let me see——”

“Don’t be too technical.—You have three cards.”

“Four cards, one yours, three mine, one for each branch

Of the Stark family I’m a member of.”

“D’you know a person so related to herself

Is supposed to be mad.”

“I may be mad.”

“You look so, sitting out here in the rain

Studying genealogy with me

You never saw before. What will we come to

With all this pride of ancestry, we Yankees?

I think we’re all mad. Tell me why we’re here

Drawn into town about this cellar hole

Like wild geese on a lake before a storm?

What do we see in such a hole, I wonder.”

“The Indians had a myth of Chicomoztoc,

Which means The Seven Caves that We Came out of.

This is the pit from which we Starks were digged.”

“You must be learned. That’s what you see in it?”

“And what do you see?”

“Yes, what
do
I see?

First let me look. I see raspberry vines——”

“Oh, if you’re going to use your eyes, just hear

What I see. It’s a little, little boy,

As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun;

He’s groping in the cellar after jam,

He thinks it’s dark and it’s flooded with daylight.”

“He’s nothing. Listen. When I lean like this

I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,—

With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug—

Bless you, it isn’t Grandsir Stark, it’s Granny,

But the pipe’s there and smoking and the jug.

She’s after cider, the old girl, she’s thirsty;

Here’s hoping she gets her drink and gets out safely.”

“Tell me about her. Does she look like me?”

“She should, shouldn’t she, you’re so many times

Over descended from her. I believe

She does look like you. Stay the way you are.

The nose is just the same, and so’s the chin—

Making allowance, making due allowance.”

“You poor, dear, great, great, great, great Granny!”

“See that you get her greatness right. Don’t stint her.”

“Yes, it’s important, though you think it isn’t.

I won’t be teased. But see how wet I am.”

“Yes, you must go; we can’t stay here for ever.

But wait until I give you a hand up.

A bead of silver water more or less

Strung on your hair won’t hurt your summer looks.

I wanted to try something with the noise

That the brook raises in the empty valley.

We have seen visions—now consult the voices.

Something I must have learned riding in trains

When I was young. I used the roar

To set the voices speaking out of it,

Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing.

Perhaps you have the art of what I mean.

I’ve never listened in among the sounds

That a brook makes in such a wild descent.

It ought to give a purer oracle.”

“It’s as you throw a picture on a screen:

The meaning of it all is out of you;

The voices give you what you wish to hear.”

“Strangely, it’s anything they wish to give.”

“Then I don’t know. It must be strange enough.

I wonder if it’s not your make-believe.

What do you think you’re like to hear to-day?”

“From the sense of our having been together—

But why take time for what I’m like to hear?

I’ll tell you what the voices really say.

You will do very well right where you are

A little longer. I mustn’t feel too hurried,

Or I can’t give myself to hear the voices.”

“Is this some trance you are withdrawing into?”

“You must be very still; you mustn’t talk.”

“I’ll hardly breathe.”

“The voices seem to say——”

“I’m waiting.”

“Don’t! The voices seem to say:

Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid

Of an acquaintance made adventurously.”

“I let you say that—on consideration.”

“I don’t see very well how you can help it.

You want the truth. I speak but by the voices.

You see they know I haven’t had your name,

Though what a name should matter between us——”

“I shall suspect——”

“Be good. The voices say:

Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber

That you shall find lies in the cellar charred

Among the raspberries, and hew and shape it

For a door-sill or other corner piece

In a new cottage on the ancient spot.

The life is not yet all gone out of it.

And come and make your summer dwelling here,

And perhaps she will come, still unafraid,

And sit before you in the open door

With flowers in her lap until they fade,

But not come in across the sacred sill——”

“I wonder where your oracle is tending.

You can see that there’s something wrong with it,

Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice

Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grandsir’s

Nor Granny’s, surely. Call up one of them.

They have best right to be heard in this place.”

“You seem so partial to our great-grandmother

(Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.)

You will be likely to regard as sacred

Anything she may say. But let me warn you,

Folks in her day were given to plain speaking.

You think you’d best tempt her at such a time?”

“It rests with us always to cut her off.”

“Well then, it’s Granny speaking: ‘I dunnow!

Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do.

There ain’t no names quite like the old ones though,

Nor never will be to my way of thinking.

One mustn’t bear too hard on the new comers,

But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort.

I should feel easier if I could see

More of the salt wherewith they’re to be salted.

Son, you do as you’re told! You take the timber—

It’s as sound as the day when it was cut—

And begin over——’ There, she’d better stop.

You can see what is troubling Granny, though.

But don’t you think we sometimes make too much

Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals,

And those will bear some keeping still about.”

“I can see we are going to be good friends.”

“I like your ‘going to be.’ You said just now

It’s going to rain.”

“I know, and it was raining.

I let you say all that. But I must go now.”

“You let me say it? on consideration?

How shall we say good-bye in such a case?”

“How shall we?”

“Will you leave the way to me?”

“No, I don’t trust your eyes. You’ve said enough.

Now give me your hand up.—Pick me that flower.”

“Where shall we meet again?”

“Nowhere but here

Once more before we meet elsewhere.”

“In rain?”

“It ought to be in rain. Sometime in rain.

In rain to-morrow, shall we, if it rains?

But if we must, in sunshine.” So she went.

I let myself in at the kitchen door.

“It’s you,”
she said
. “I can’t get up. Forgive me

Not answering your knock. I can no more

Let people in than I can keep them out.

I’m getting too old for my size, I tell them.

My fingers are about all I’ve the use of

So’s to take any comfort. I can sew:

I help out with this beadwork what I can.”

“That’s a smart pair of pumps you’re beading there.

Who are they for?”

“You mean?—oh, for some miss.

I can’t keep track of other people’s daughters.

Lord, if I were to dream of everyone

Whose shoes I primped to dance in!”

“And where’s John?”

“Haven’t you seen him? Strange what set you off

To come to his house when he’s gone to yours.

You can’t have passed each other. I know what:

He must have changed his mind and gone to Garlands.

He won’t be long in that case. You can wait.

Though what good you can be, or anyone—

It’s gone so far. You’ve heard? Estelle’s run off.”

“Yes, what’s it all about? When did she go?”

“Two weeks since.”

“She’s in earnest, it appears.”

“I’m sure she won’t come back. She’s hiding somewhere.

I don’t know where myself. John thinks I do.

He thinks I only have to say the word,

And she’ll come back. But, bless you, I’m her mother—

I can’t talk to her, and, Lord, if I could!”

“It will go hard with John. What
will
he do?

He can’t find anyone to take her place.”

“Oh, if you ask me that, what will he do?

He gets some sort of bakeshop meals together,

With me to sit and tell him everything,

What’s wanted and how much and where it is.

But when I’m gone—of course I can’t stay here:

Estelle’s to take me when she’s settled down.

He and I only hinder one another.

I tell them they can’t get me through the door, though:

I’ve been built in here like a big church organ.

We’ve been here fifteen years.”

“That’s a long time

To live together and then pull apart.

How do you see him living when you’re gone?

Two of you out will leave an empty house.”

“I don’t just see him living many years,

Left here with nothing but the furniture.

I hate to think of the old place when we’re gone,

With the brook going by below the yard,

And no one here but hens blowing about.

If he could sell the place, but then, he can’t:

No one will ever live on it again.

It’s too run down. This is the last of it.

What I think he will do, is let things smash.

He’ll sort of swear the time away. He’s awful!

I never saw a man let family troubles

Make so much difference in his man’s affairs.

He’s just dropped everything. He’s like a child.

I blame his being brought up by his mother.

He’s got hay down that’s been rained on three times.

He hoed a little yesterday for me:

I thought the growing things would do him good.

Something went wrong. I saw him throw the hoe

Sky-high with both hands. I can see it now—

Come here—I’ll show you—in that apple tree.

That’s no way for a man to do at his age:

He’s fifty-five, you know, if he’s a day.”

“Aren’t you afraid of him? What’s that gun for?”

“Oh, that’s been there for hawks since chicken-time.

John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his friends.

I’ll say that for him, John’s no threatener

Like some men folk. No one’s afraid of him;

All is, he’s made up his mind not to stand

What he has got to stand.”

“Where is Estelle?

Couldn’t one talk to her? What does she say?

You say you don’t know where she is.”

“Nor want to!

She thinks if it was bad to live with him,

It must be right to leave him.”

“Which is wrong!”

“Yes, but he should have married her.”

“I know.”

“The strain’s been too much for her all these years:

I can’t explain it any other way.

It’s different with a man, at least with John:

He knows he’s kinder than the run of men.

Better than married ought to be as good

As married—that’s what he has always said.

I know the way he’s felt—but all the same!”

“I wonder why he doesn’t marry her

And end it.”

“Too late now: she wouldn’t have him.

He’s given her time to think of something else.

That’s his mistake. The dear knows my interest

Has been to keep the thing from breaking up.

This is a good home: I don’t ask for better.

But when I’ve said, ‘Why shouldn’t they be married,’

He’d say, ‘Why should they?’ no more words than that.”

“And after all why should they? John’s been fair

I take it. What was his was always hers.

There was no quarrel about property.”

“Reason enough, there was no property.

A friend or two as good as own the farm,

Such as it is. It isn’t worth the mortgage.”