Fragmentary Blue

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)⁠—
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

Where this text comes from

First published in New Hampshire (1923). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2] [3]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/robert-frost_new-hampshire, new-hampshire.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1#L8.

Cite this poem

Robert Frost (1874–1963). “Fragmentary Blue.” First published in New Hampshire (1923). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-frost/fragmentary-blue/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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