Describing Poetry HW (have tutor)

STORIES

493

ROBERT FROST

Home Burial

He saw her from the bottom of the stairs

Before she saw him. She was starting down,

Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.

She took a doubtful step and then undid it

5 To raise herself and look again. He spoke

Advancing toward her: “What is it you see

From up there always?—for I want to know.”

She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,

And her face changed from terrified to dull.

10 He said to gain time: “What is it you see?”

Mounting until she cowered under him.

“I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.”

She, in her place, refused him any help,

With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.

15 She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,

Blind creature; and awhile he didn’t see.

p. 493

p. 494

But at last he murmured, “Oh,” and again, “Oh.”

“What is it—what?” she said.

“Just that I see.”

“You don’t,” she challenged. “Tell me what it is.”

20 “The wonder is I didn’t see at once.

I never noticed it from here before.

I must be wonted to it—that’s the reason.

The little graveyard where my people are!

So small the window frames the whole of it.

25 Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?

There are three stones of slate and one of marble,

Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight

On the sidehill. We haven’t to mind those.

But I understand: it is not the stones,

30 But the child’s mound—”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t,

don’t,” she cried.

She withdrew, shrinking from beneath his arm

That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;

And turned on him with such a daunting look,

He said twice over before he knew himself:

35 “Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”

“Not you!—Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I don’t need it!

I must get out of here. I must get air.—

I don’t know rightly whether any man can.”

“Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time.

40 Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.”

He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.

“There’s something I should like to ask you, dear.”

“You don’t know how to ask it.”

“Help me, then.”

Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.

45 “My words are nearly always an offense.

I don’t know how to speak of anything

So as to please you. But I might be taught,

I should suppose. I can’t say I see how.

A man must partly give up being a man

50 With womenfolk. We could have some arrangement

By which I’d bind myself to keep hands off

Anything special you’re a-mind to name.

Though I don’t like such things ’twixt those that love.

Two that don’t love can’t live together without them.

55 But two that do can’t live together with them.”

She moved the latch a little. “Don’t—don’t go.

Don’t carry it to someone else this time.

Tell me about it if it’s something human.

Let me into your grief. I’m not so much

60 Unlike other folks as your standing there

Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.

I do think, though, you overdo it a little.

What was it brought you up to think it the thing

To take your mother-loss of a first child

65 So inconsolably—in the face of love.

You’d think his memory might be satisfied—”

“There you go sneering now!”

“I’m not, I’m not!

You make me angry. I’ll come down to you.

God, what a woman! And it’s come to this,

70 A man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead.”

“You can’t because you don’t know how to speak.

If you had any feelings, you that dug

With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave;

I saw you from that very window there,

75 Making the gravel leap and leap in air,

Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly

And roll back down the mound beside the hole.

I thought, Who is that man? I didn’t know you.

And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs

80 To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.

Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice

Out in the kitchen, and I don’t know why,

But I went near to see with my own eyes.

You could sit there with the stains on your shoes

85 Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave

And talk about your everyday concerns.

You had stood the spade up against the wall

Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.”

“I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.

90 I’m cursed. God, if I don’t believe I’m cursed.”

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p. 496

“I can repeat the very words you were saying:

‘Three foggy mornings and one rainy day

Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.’

Think of it, talk like that at such a time!

95 What had how long it takes a birch to rot

To do with what was in the darkened parlor?

You couldn’t care! The nearest friends can go

With anyone to death, comes so far short

They might as well not try to go at all.

100 No, from the time when one is sick to death,

One is alone, and he dies more alone.

Friends make pretense of following to the grave,

But before one is in it, their minds are turned

And making the best of their way back to life

105 And living people, and things they understand.

But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so

If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!”

“There, you have said it all and you feel better.

You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the door.

110 The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up?

Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!”

“You—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—

Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you—”

“If—you—do!” She was opening the door wider.

115 “Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.

I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I will!—”

1915

•How does the poem characterize its two major speakers, especially in terms of their differing attitudes toward death and grief?

497

GWENDOLYN BROOKS

We Real Cool

The Pool Players,

Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

5 Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

10 Die soon.

1950

•Who are “we” in this poem? Do you think that the speaker and the poet share the same idea of what is “cool”?

519

EZRA POUND

The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter

(after Rihaku)

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,

You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.

5 And we went on living in the village of Chokan:

Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

10 Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

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p. 520

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

For ever and for ever and for ever.

Why should I climb the look out?

15 At sixteen you departed,

You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

20 By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,

Too deep to clear them away!

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August

Over the grass in the West garden;

25 They hurt me. I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you

As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

1915

•How have the speaker’s feelings about her husband changed over time? How do descriptions of setting suggest her feelings?