Robert Frost (1874-1963)
To E. T.
1I slumbered with your poems on my breast
2Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
3Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
4To see, if in a dream they brought of you,
5I might not have the chance I missed in life
6Through some delay, and call you to your face
7First soldier, and then poet, and then both,
8Who died a soldier-poet of your race.
9I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
10Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--
11And one thing more that was not then to say:
12The Victory for what it lost and gained.
13You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
14On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day
15The war seemed over more for you than me,
16But now for me than you--the other way.
17How over, though, for even me who knew
18The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
19If I was not to speak of it to you
20And see you pleased once more with words of mine?
Notes
1] E. T. is Edward Thomas (1878-1917), the British poet and friend whom Frost urged to write poetry and a volume of whose poems Frost had published in the United States.
14] Vimy Ridge: a place captured by British and Canadian troops on April 9-10, 1917, in the battle of Arras. Thomas was killed on April 9.
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, New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes (New York: Henry Holt, 1923), p. 83. D-11 0397 Fisher Library.
First publication date:
1923
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/16
Rhyme: abcb
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