Frost's "Desert Places"

For someone who owns The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged, it's a tragedy I missed this one.

"Desert Places" by Robert Frost (from "The Writer's Almanac)

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs,
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

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.

Posted by Monoceros at January 7, 2008 8:50 PM