Robert Frost (1874-1963)
The Oven Bird
1There is a singer everyone has heard,
2Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
3Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
4He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
5Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
6He says the early petal-fall is past
7When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
8On sunny days a moment overcast;
9And comes that other fall we name the fall.
10He says the highway dust is over all.
11The bird would cease and be as other birds
12But that he knows in singing not to sing.
13The question that he frames in all but words
14Is what to make of a diminished thing.
Notes
1] The oven bird, a warbler, is also known as the "teacher" bird after its call.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Robert Frost, Mountain Interval (New York: Henry Holt, 1921), p. 27. PS 3511 R94 M6 ROBA.
First publication date:
1916
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/16
Rhyme: aabcbdcdeefgfg
Other poems by Robert Frost
