To E. T.
To E. T.
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.
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
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. Back to Line
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. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1923
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme