EBOOK NEW HAMPSHIRE, A POEM; WITH NOTES AND GRACE NOTES *

Produced by Al Haines, Mark Akrigg, Stephen Hutcheson & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

By ROBERT FROST

A BOY’S WILL NORTH OF BOSTON MOUNTAIN INTERVAL SELECTED POEMS NEW HAMPSHIRE

NEW HAMPSHIRE A POEM WITH NOTES AND GRACE NOTES BY ROBERT FROST WITH WOODCUTS BY J. J. LANKES PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOLT & COMPANY : NEW YORK : MCMXXIII

Copyright, 1923 BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

First Printing, October, 1923 Second Printing, January, 1924 Third Printing, May, 1924 Fourth Printing, November, 1924 Fifth Printing, December, 1926 Sixth Printing, April, 1928

To VERMONT AND MICHIGAN

CONTENTS

PAGE

NEW HAMPSHIRE New Hampshire 3

NOTES A Star in a Stone-boat 21 The Census-taker 24 The Star-splitter 27 Maple 31 The Axe-helve 37 The Grindstone 41 Paul’s Wife 44 Wild Grapes 49 Place for a Third 53 Two Witches 56 I. The Witch of Coös 56 II. The Pauper Witch of Grafton 61 An Empty Threat 65 A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey’s Ears and Some Books 67 I Will Sing You One-O 73

GRACE NOTES Fragmentary Blue 79 Fire and Ice 80 In a Disused Graveyard 81 Dust of Snow 82 To E. T. 83 Nothing Gold Can Stay 84 The Runaway 85 The Aim was Song 86 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 87 For Once, Then, Something 88 Blue-Butterfly Day 89 The Onset 90 To Earthward 91 Good-Bye and Keep Cold 93 Two Look at Two 95 Not to Keep 97 A Brook in the City 98 The Kitchen Chimney 99 Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter 100 A Boundless Moment 101 Evening in a Sugar Orchard 102 Gathering Leaves 103 The Valley’s Singing Day 104 Misgiving 105 A Hillside Thaw 106 Plowmen 108 On a Tree Fallen Across the Road 109 Our Singing Strength 110 The Lockless Door 112 The Need of Being Versed in Country Things 113

NEW HAMPSHIRE

I met a lady from the South who said (You won’t believe she said it, but she said it): "None of my family ever worked, or had A thing to sell." I don’t suppose the work Much matters. You may work for all of me. I’ve seen the time I’ve had to work myself. The having anything to sell[1] is what Is the disgrace in man or state or nation.

I met a traveller from Arkansas Who boasted of his state as beautiful For diamonds and apples. "Diamonds And apples in commercial quantities?" I asked him, on my guard. "Oh yes," he answered, Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman. "I see the porter’s made your bed," I told him.

I met a Californian who would Talk California—​a state so blessed, He said, in climate none had ever died there A natural death, and Vigilance Committees Had had to organize to stock the graveyards And vindicate the state’s humanity. "Just the way Steffanson runs on," I murmured, "About the British Arctic. That’s what comes Of being in the market with a climate."

I met a poet from another state, A zealot full of fluid inspiration, Who in the name of fluid inspiration, But in the best style of bad salesmanship, Angrily tried to make me write a protest (In verse I think) against the Volstead Act. He didn’t even offer me a drink Until I asked for one to steady him. This is called having an idea to sell.

It never could have happened in New Hampshire.

The only person really soiled with trade I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire Was someone who had just come back ashamed From selling things in California. He’d built a noble mansard roof with balls On turrets like Constantinople, deep In woods some ten miles from a railroad station, As if to put forever out of mind The hope of being, as we say, received. I found him standing at the close of day Inside the threshold of his open barn, Like a lone actor on a gloomy stage-- And recognized him through the iron grey In which his face was muffled to the eyes As an old boyhood friend, and once indeed A drover with me on the road to Brighton. His farm was "grounds," and not a farm at all; His house among the local sheds and shanties Rose like a factor’s at a trading station. And he was rich, and I was still a rascal. I couldn’t keep from asking impolitely, Where had he been and what had he been doing? How did he get so? (Rich was understood.) In dealing in "old rags" in San Francisco. Oh it was terrible as well could be. We both of us turned over in our graves.

Just specimens is all New Hampshire has, One each of everything as in a show-case Which naturally she doesn’t care to sell.

She had one President (pronounce him Purse, And make the most of it for better or worse. He’s your one chance to score against the state). She had one Daniel Webster. He was all The Daniel Webster ever was or shall be. She had the Dartmouth needed to produce him.

I call her old. She has one family Whose claim is good to being settled here Before the era of colonization, And before that of exploration even. John Smith remarked them as he coasted by Dangling their legs and fishing off a wharf At the Isles of Shoals, and satisfied himself They weren’t Red Indians but veritable Pre-primitives of the white race, dawn people, Like those who furnished Adam’s sons with wives; However uninnocent they may have been In being there so early in our history. They’d been there then a hundred years or more. Pity he didn’t ask what they were up to At that date with a wharf already built, And take their name. They’ve since told me their name-- Today an honored one in Nottingham.

As for what they were up to more than fishing-- Suppose they weren’t behaving Puritanly, The hour had not yet struck for being good, Mankind had not yet gone on the Sabbatical. It became an explorer of the deep Not to explore too deep in others' business.

Did you but know of him, New Hampshire has One real reformer who would change the world So it would be accepted by two classes, Artists the minute they set up as artists, Before, that is, they are themselves accepted, And boys the minute they get out of college. I can’t help thinking those are tests to go by.