{
 "id": "robert-frost/maple",
 "title": "Maple",
 "poet": "Robert Frost",
 "poet_slug": "robert-frost",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Hampshire",
 "book_slug": "new-hampshire",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 5,
 "container": "Notes",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1923,
  "venue": "New Hampshire (1923)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/newhampshirepoem00fros_0",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58611",
   "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7008086"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-frost_new-hampshire",
  "file": "new-hampshire.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58611",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000433611"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 175,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 9
 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Her teacher’s certainty it must be Mabel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made Maple first take notice of her name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She asked her father and he told her “Maple⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Maple is right.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“But teacher told the school",
    "indent": 6
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s no such name.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Teachers don’t know as much",
    "indent": 9
   },
   {
    "text": "As fathers about children, you tell teacher.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You tell her that it’s M-A-P-L-E.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You ask her if she knows a maple tree.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, you were named after a maple tree.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your mother named you. You and she just saw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each other in passing in the room upstairs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One coming this way into life, and one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Going the other out of life⁠—you know?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So you can’t have much recollection of her.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She had been having a long look at you.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She put her finger in your cheek so hard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It must have made your dimple there, and said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "‘Maple.’ I said it too: ‘Yes, for her name.’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She nodded. So we’re sure there’s no mistake.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I don’t know what she wanted it to mean,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But it seems like some word she left to bid you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be a good girl⁠—be like a maple tree.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How like a maple tree’s for us to guess.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or for a little girl to guess sometime.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not now⁠—at least I shouldn’t try too hard now.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By and by I will tell you all I know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About the different trees, and something, too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About your mother that perhaps may help.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dangerous self-arousing words to sow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Luckily all she wanted of her name then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And give the teacher a scare as from her father.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Anything further had been wasted on her,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or so he tried to think to avoid blame.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She would forget it. She all but forgot it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And came so near death in the dark of years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That when it woke and came to life again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flower was different from the parent seed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It came back vaguely at the glass one day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As she stood saying her name over aloud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Striking it gently across her lowered eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make it go well with the way she looked.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What was it about her name? Its strangeness lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In having too much meaning. Other names,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But hadn’t as it went. (She knew a Rose.)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This difference from other names it was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made people notice it⁠—and notice her.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(They either noticed it, or got it wrong.)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her problem was to find out what it asked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In dress or manner of the girl who bore it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If she could form some notion of her mother⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What she had thought was lovely, and what good.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This was her mother’s childhood home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The house one story high in front, three stories",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the end it presented to the road.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(The arrangement made a pleasant sunny cellar.)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her mother’s bedroom was her father’s still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where she could watch her mother’s picture fading.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once she found for a bookmark in the Bible",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A maple leaf she thought must have been laid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In wait for her there. She read every word",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the two pages it was pressed between",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if it was her mother speaking to her.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But forgot to put the leaf back in closing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lost the place never to read again.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She was sure, though, there had been nothing in it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So she looked for herself, as everyone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looks for himself, more or less outwardly.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And her self-seeking, fitful though it was,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May still have been what led her on to read,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think a little, and get some city schooling.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have had to do with it⁠—she sometimes wondered.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, till she found herself in a strange place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the name Maple to have brought her to,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taking dictation on a paper pad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the pauses when she raised her eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Watching out of a nineteenth story window",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An airship laboring with unship-like motion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a vague all-disturbing roar above the river",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the highest city built with hands.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Someone was saying in such natural tones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She almost wrote the words down on her knee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Do you know you remind me of a tree⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A maple tree?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Because my name is Maple?”",
    "indent": 6
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Isn’t it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“No doubt you’ve heard the office call me Mabel.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have to let them call me what they like.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They were both stirred that he should have divined",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without the name her personal mystery.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It made it seem as if there must be something",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She must have missed herself. So they were married,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And took the fancy home with them to live by.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They went on pilgrimage once to her father’s",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(The house one story high in front, three stories",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the side it presented to the road)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To see if there was not some special tree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She might have overlooked. They could find none,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not so much as a single tree for shade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She told him of the bookmark maple leaf",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the big Bible, and all she remembered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the place marked with it⁠—“Wave offering,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Something about wave offering, it said.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“You’ve never asked your father outright, have you?”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“I have, and been put off sometime, I think.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(This was her faded memory of the way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once long ago her father had put himself off.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Because no telling but it may have been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Something between your father and your mother",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not meant for us at all.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Not meant for me?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where would the fairness be in giving me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A name to carry for life, and never know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The secret of?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“And then it may have been",
    "indent": 6
   },
   {
    "text": "Something a father couldn’t tell a daughter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As well as could a mother. And again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It may have been their one lapse into fancy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twould be too bad to make him sorry for",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By bringing it up to him when he was too old.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your father feels us round him with our questing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And holds us off unnecessarily,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if he didn’t know what little thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Might lead us on to a discovery.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was as personal as he could be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About the way he saw it was with you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To say your mother, had she lived, would be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As far again as from being born to bearing.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Just one look more with what you say in mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I give up”; which last look came to nothing.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, though they now gave up the search forever,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They clung to what one had seen in the other",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By inspiration. It proved there was something.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They kept their thoughts away from when the maples",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sap and snow rolled off the sugar house.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When they made her related to the maples,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was the tree the autumn fire ran through",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And swept of leathern leaves, but left the bark",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They always took their holidays in autumn.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once they came on a maple in a glade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every leaf of foliage she’d worn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But its age kept them from considering this one.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twenty-five years ago at Maple’s naming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The next cow might have licked up out at pasture.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could it have been another maple like it?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They hovered for a moment near discovery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Figurative enough to see the symbol,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But lacking faith in anything to mean",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The same at different times to different people.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps a filial diffidence partly kept them",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From thinking it could be a thing so bridal.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And anyway it came too late for Maple.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She used her hands to cover up her eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“We would not see the secret if we could now:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We are not looking for it any more.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus had a name with meaning, given in death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made a girl’s marriage, and ruled in her life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No matter that the meaning was not clear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A name with meaning could bring up a child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taking the child out of the parents’ hands.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Better a meaningless name, I should say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As leaving more to nature and happy chance.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Name children some names and see what you do.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}