{
"id": "robert-frost/new-hampshire",
"title": "New Hampshire",
"poet": "Robert Frost",
"poet_slug": "robert-frost",
"language": "en",
"book": "New Hampshire",
"book_slug": "new-hampshire",
"book_kind": "volume",
"sequence": 1,
"container": null,
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"first_published": {
"year": 1923,
"venue": "New Hampshire (1923)",
"note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
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{
"text": "I met a lady from the South who said",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "(You won’t believe she said it, but she said it):",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“None of my family ever worked, or had",
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{
"text": "A thing to sell.” I don’t suppose the work",
"indent": 0
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{
"text": "Much matters. You may work for all of me.",
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{
"text": "I’ve seen the time I’ve had to work myself.",
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{
"text": "The having anything to sell is what",
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{
"text": "Is the disgrace in man or state or nation.",
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[
{
"text": "I met a traveller from Arkansas",
"indent": 0
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{
"text": "Who boasted of his state as beautiful",
"indent": 0
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{
"text": "For diamonds and apples. “Diamonds",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And apples in commercial quantities?”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I asked him, on my guard. “Oh yes,” he answered,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“I see the porter’s made your bed,” I told him.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "I met a Californian who would",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Talk California—a state so blessed,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He said, in climate none had ever died there",
"indent": 0
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{
"text": "A natural death, and Vigilance Committees",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Had had to organize to stock the graveyards",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And vindicate the state’s humanity.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Just the way Steffanson runs on,” I murmured,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“About the British Arctic. That’s what comes",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of being in the market with a climate.”",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "I met a poet from another state,",
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{
"text": "A zealot full of fluid inspiration,",
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{
"text": "Who in the name of fluid inspiration,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But in the best style of bad salesmanship,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Angrily tried to make me write a protest",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He didn’t even offer me a drink",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Until I asked for one to steady him.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "This is called having an idea to sell.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "It never could have happened in New Hampshire.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "The only person really soiled with trade",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Was someone who had just come back ashamed",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "From selling things in California.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He’d built a noble mansard roof with balls",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "On turrets like Constantinople, deep",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In woods some ten miles from a railroad station,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "As if to put forever out of mind",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The hope of being, as we say, received.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I found him standing at the close of day",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Inside the threshold of his open barn,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Like a lone actor on a gloomy stage—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And recognized him through the iron grey",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In which his face was muffled to the eyes",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "As an old boyhood friend, and once indeed",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "A drover with me on the road to Brighton.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "His farm was “grounds,” and not a farm at all;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "His house among the local sheds and shanties",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Rose like a factor’s at a trading station.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And he was rich, and I was still a rascal.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I couldn’t keep from asking impolitely,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Where had he been and what had he been doing?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "How did he get so? (Rich was understood.)",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In dealing in “old rags” in San Francisco.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Oh it was terrible as well could be.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "We both of us turned over in our graves.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "Just specimens is all New Hampshire has,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "One each of everything as in a show-case",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Which naturally she doesn’t care to sell.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "She had one President (pronounce him Purse,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And make the most of it for better or worse.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He’s your one chance to score against the state).",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "She had one Daniel Webster. He was all",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The Daniel Webster ever was or shall be.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "She had the Dartmouth needed to produce him.",
"indent": 0
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],
[
{
"text": "I call her old. She has one family",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Whose claim is good to being settled here",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Before the era of colonization,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And before that of exploration even.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "John Smith remarked them as he coasted by",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Dangling their legs and fishing off a wharf",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "At the Isles of Shoals, and satisfied himself",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "They weren’t Red Indians but veritable",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Pre-primitives of the white race, dawn people,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Like those who furnished Adam’s sons with wives;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "However uninnocent they may have been",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In being there so early in our history.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "They’d been there then a hundred years or more.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Pity he didn’t ask what they were up to",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "At that date with a wharf already built,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And take their name. They’ve since told me their name—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Today an honored one in Nottingham.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "As for what they were up to more than fishing—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Suppose they weren’t behaving Puritanly,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The hour had not yet struck for being good,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Mankind had not yet gone on the Sabbatical.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "It became an explorer of the deep",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Not to explore too deep in others’ business.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "Did you but know of him, New Hampshire has",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "One real reformer who would change the world",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "So it would be accepted by two classes,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Artists the minute they set up as artists,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Before, that is, they are themselves accepted,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And boys the minute they get out of college.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I can’t help thinking those are tests to go by.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "And she has one I don’t know what to call him,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Who comes from Philadelphia every year",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "With a great flock of chickens of rare breeds",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He wants to give the educational",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Advantages of growing almost wild",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Under the watchful eye of hawk and eagle—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Dorkings because they’re spoken of by Chaucer,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Sussex because they’re spoken of by Herrick.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "She has a touch of gold. New Hampshire gold—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "You may have heard of it. I had a farm",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Offered me not long since up Berlin way",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "With a mine on it that was worked for gold;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But not gold in commercial quantities.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Just enough gold to make the engagement rings",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And marriage rings of those who owned the farm.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "What gold more innocent could one have asked for?",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "One of my children ranging after rocks",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Lately brought home from Andover or Canaan",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "A specimen of beryl with a trace",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of radium. I know with radium",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The trace would have to be the merest trace",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To be below the threshold of commercial,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But trust New Hampshire not to have enough",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of radium or anything to sell.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "A specimen of everything, I said.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "She has one witch—old style. She lives in Colebrook.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "(The only other witch I ever met",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Was lately at a cut-glass dinner in Boston.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "There were four candles and four people present.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The witch was young, and beautiful (new style),",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And open-minded. She was free to question",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Her gift for reading letters locked in boxes.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Why was it so much greater when the boxes",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Were metal than it was when they were wooden?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "It made the world seem so mysterious.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The S’ciety for Psychical Research",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Was cognizant. Her husband was worth millions.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I think he owned some shares in Harvard College.)",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "New Hampshire used to have at Salem",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "A company we called the White Corpuscles,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Whose duty was at any hour of night",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To rush in sheets and fool’s caps where they smelled",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "A thing the least bit doubtfully perscented",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And give someone the Skipper Ireson’s Ride.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "One each of everything as in a show-case.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "More than enough land for a specimen",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "You’ll say she has, but there there enters in",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Something else to protect her from herself.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "There quality makes up for quantity.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Not even New Hampshire farms are much for sale.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The farm I made my home on in the mountains",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I had to take by force rather than buy.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I caught the owner outdoors by himself",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Raking up after winter, and I said,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“I’m going to put you off this farm: I want it.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Where are you going to put me? In the road?”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“I’m going to put you on the farm next to it.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Why won’t the farm next to it do for you?”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“I like this better.” It was really better.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "Apples? New Hampshire has them, but unsprayed,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "With no suspicion in stem-end or blossom-end",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of vitriol or arsenate of lead,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And so not good for anything but cider.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Her unpruned grapes are flung like lariats",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Far up the birches out of reach of man.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "A state producing precious metals, stones,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And—writing; none of these except perhaps",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The precious literature in quantity",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Or quality to worry the producer",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "About disposing of it. Do you know,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Considering the market, there are more",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Poems produced than any other thing?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "No wonder poets sometimes have to seem",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "So much more business-like than business men.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "She’s one of the two best states in the Union.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Vermont’s the other. And the two have been",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Yoke-fellows in the sap-yoke from of old",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In many Marches. And they lie like wedges,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Thick end to thin end and thin end to thick end,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And are a figure of the way the strong",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of mind and strong of arm should fit together,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "One thick where one is thin and vice versa.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "New Hampshire raises the Connecticut",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In a trout hatchery near Canada,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But soon divides the river with Vermont.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Both are delightful states for their absurdly",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Small towns—Lost Nation, Bungey, Muddy Boo,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Poplin, Still Corners (so called not because",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The place is silent all day long, nor yet",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Because it boasts a whisky still—because",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "It set out once to be a city and still",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Is only corners, cross-roads in a wood).",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And I remember one whose name appeared",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Between the pictures on a movie screen",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Election night once in Franconia,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "When everything had gone Republican",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And Democrats were sore in need of comfort:",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Easton goes Democratic, Wilson 4",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Hughes 2. And everybody to the saddest",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Laughed the loud laugh, the big laugh at the little.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "New York (five million) laughs at Manchester,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Manchester (sixty or seventy thousand) laughs",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "At Littleton (four thousand), Littleton",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Laughs at Franconia (seven hundred), and",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Franconia laughs, I fear—did laugh that night—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "At Easton. What has Easton left to laugh at,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And like the actress exclaim, “Oh my God” at?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "There’s Bungey; and for Bungey there are towns,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Whole townships named but without population.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "Anything I can say about New Hampshire",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Will serve almost as well about Vermont,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Excepting that they differ in their mountains.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "I had been coming to New Hampshire mountains.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And here I am and what am I to say?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Here first my theme becomes embarrassing.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Emerson said, “The God who made New Hampshire",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Taunted the lofty land with little men.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Another Massachusetts poet said,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“I go no more to summer in New Hampshire.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I’ve given up my summer place in Dublin.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But when I asked to know what ailed New Hampshire,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "She said she couldn’t stand the people in it,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The little men (it’s Massachusetts speaking).",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And when I asked to know what ailed the people,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "She said, “Go read your own books and find out.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I may as well confess myself the author",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of several books against the world in general.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To take them as against a special state",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Or even nation’s to restrict my meaning.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I’m what is called a sensibilitist,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Or otherwise an environmentalist.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I refuse to adapt myself a mite",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To any change from hot to cold, from wet",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To dry, from poor to rich, or back again.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I make a virtue of my suffering",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "From nearly everything that goes on round me.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In other words, I know wherever I am,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Being the creature of literature I am,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I shall not lack for pain to keep me awake.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Kit Marlowe taught me how to say my prayers:",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Samoa, Russia, Ireland I complain of,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "No less than England, France and Italy.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Because I wrote my novels in New Hampshire",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Is no proof that I aimed them at New Hampshire.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "When I left Massachusetts years ago",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Between two days, the reason why I sought",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "New Hampshire, not Connecticut,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Rhode Island, New York, or Vermont was this:",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Where I was living then, New Hampshire offered",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The nearest boundary to escape across.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I hadn’t an illusion in my hand-bag",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "About the people being better there",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Than those I left behind. I thought they weren’t.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I thought they couldn’t be. And yet they were.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I’d sure had no such friends in Massachusetts",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "As Hall of Windham, Gay of Atkinson,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Bartlett of Raymond (now of Colorado),",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Harris of Derry, and Lynch of Bethlehem.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The glorious bards of Massachusetts seem",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To want to make New Hampshire people over.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "They taunt the lofty land with little men.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I don’t know what to say about the people.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "For art’s sake one could almost wish them worse",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Rather than better. How are we to write",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The Russian novel in America",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "As long as life goes so unterribly?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "There is the pinch from which our only outcry",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In literature to date is heard to come.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "We get what little misery we can",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Out of not having cause for misery.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "It makes the guild of novel writers sick",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To be expected to be Dostoevskis",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "On nothing worse than too much luck and comfort.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "This is not sorrow, though; it’s just the vapors,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And recognized as such in Russia itself",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Under the new régime, and so forbidden.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "If well it is with Russia, then feel free",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To say so or be stood against the wall",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And shot. It’s Pollyanna now or death.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "This, then, is the new freedom we hear tell of;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And very sensible. No state can build",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "A literature that shall at once be sound",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And sad on a foundation of wellbeing.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "To show the level of intelligence",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Among us; it was just a Warren farmer",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Whose horse had pulled him short up in the road",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "By me, a stranger. This is what he said,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "From nothing but embarrassment and want",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of anything more sociable to say:",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“You hear those hound-dogs sing on Moosilauke?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Well they remind me of the hue and cry",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "We’ve heard against the Mid-Victorians",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And never rightly understood till Bryan",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Retired from politics and joined the chorus.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The matter with the Mid-Victorians",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Seems to have been a man named John L. Darwin.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Go ’long,” I said to him, he to his horse.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "I knew a man who failing as a farmer",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Burned down his farmhouse for the fire insurance,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And spent the proceeds on a telescope",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To satisfy a life-long curiosity",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "About our place among the infinities.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And how was that for other-worldliness?",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "If I must choose which I would elevate—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The people or the already lofty mountains,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I’d elevate the already lofty mountains.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The only fault I find with old New Hampshire",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Is that her mountains aren’t quite high enough.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I was not always so; I’ve come to be so.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "How, to my sorrow, how have I attained",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "A height from which to look down critical",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "On mountains? What has given me assurance",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To say what height becomes New Hampshire mountains,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Or any mountains? Can it be some strength",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I feel as of an earthquake in my back",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To heave them higher to the morning star?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Can it be foreign travel in the Alps?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Or having seen and credited a moment",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The solid moulding of vast peaks of cloud",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Behind the pitiful reality",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of Lincoln, Lafayette and Liberty?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Or some such sense as says how high shall jet",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The fountain in proportion to the basin?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "No, none of these has raised me to my throne",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of intellectual dissatisfaction,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But the sad accident of having seen",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Our actual mountains given in a map",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of early times as twice the height they are—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Ten thousand feet instead of only five—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Which shows how sad an accident may be.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Five thousand is no longer high enough.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Whereas I never had a good idea",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "About improving people in the world,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Here I am over-fertile in suggestion,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And cannot rest from planning day or night",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "How high I’d thrust the peaks in summer snow",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To tap the upper sky and draw a flow",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of frosty night air on the vale below",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Down from the stars to freeze the dew as starry.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "The more the sensibilitist I am",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The more I seem to want my mountains wild;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The way the wiry gang-boss liked the log-jam.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "After he’d picked the lock and got it started,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He dodged a log that lifted like an arm",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Against the sky to break his back for him,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Then came in dancing, skipping, with his life",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Across the roar and chaos, and the words",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "We saw him say along the zigzag journey",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Were doubtless as the words we heard him say",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "On coming nearer: “Wasn’t she an i-deal",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Son-of-a-bitch? You bet she was an i-deal.”",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "For all her mountains fall a little short,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Her people not quite short enough for Art,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "She’s still New Hampshire, a most restful state.",
"indent": 0
}
],
[
{
"text": "Lately in converse with a New York alec",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "About the new school of the pseudo-phallic,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I found myself in a close corner where",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I had to make an almost funny choice.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Choose you which you will be—a prude, or puke,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Mewling and puking in the public arms.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Me for the hills where I don’t have to choose.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“But if you had to choose, which would you be?”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I wouldn’t be a prude afraid of nature.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I know a man who took a double axe",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And went alone against a grove of trees;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But his heart failing him, he dropped the axe",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And ran for shelter quoting Matthew Arnold:",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "There’s been enough shed without shedding mine.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Remember Birnam Wood! The wood’s in flux!”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He had a special terror of the flux",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "That showed itself in dendrophobia.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The only decent tree had been to mill",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And educated into boards, he said.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He knew too well for any earthly use",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The line where man leaves off and nature starts,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And never over-stepped it save in dreams.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He stood on the safe side of the line talking;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Which is sheer Matthew Arnoldism,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The cult of one who owned himself “a foiled,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Circuitous wanderer,” and “took dejectedly",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "His seat upon the intellectual throne.”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Agreed in frowning on these improvised",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Altars the woods are full of nowadays,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Again as in the days when Ahaz sinned",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "By worship under green trees in the open.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Scarcely a mile but that I come on one,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "A black-cheeked stone and stick of rain-washed charcoal.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Even to say the groves were God’s first temples",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Comes too near to Ahaz’ sin for safety.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Nothing not built with hands of course is sacred.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But here is not a question of what’s sacred;",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Rather of what to face or run away from.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I’d hate to be a runaway from nature.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And neither would I choose to be a puke",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Who cares not what he does in company,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And, when he can’t do anything, falls back",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "On words, and tries his worst to make words speak",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Louder than actions, and sometimes achieves it.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "It seems a narrow choice the age insists on.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "How about being a good Greek, for instance?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "That course, they tell me, isn’t offered this year.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "“Come, but this isn’t choosing—puke or prude?”",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Well, if I have to choose one or the other,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "I choose to be a plain New Hampshire farmer",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "With an income in cash of say a thousand",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "(From say a publisher in New York City).",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "It’s restful to arrive at a decision,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "And restful just to think about New Hampshire.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "At present I am living in Vermont.",
"indent": 0
}
]
]
}