{
 "id": "robert-frost/the-grindstone",
 "title": "The Grindstone",
 "poet": "Robert Frost",
 "poet_slug": "robert-frost",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Hampshire",
 "book_slug": "new-hampshire",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 7,
 "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": 77,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
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  [
   {
    "text": "Having a wheel and four legs of its own",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To get it anywhere that I can see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These hands have helped it go, and even race;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not all the motion, though, they ever lent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not all the miles it may have thought it went,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have got it one step from the starting place.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It stands beside the same old apple tree.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shadow of the apple tree is thin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon it now, its feet are fast in snow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All other farm machinery’s gone in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And some of it on no more legs and wheel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the grindstone can boast to stand or go.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(I’m thinking chiefly of the wheelbarrow.)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For months it hasn’t known the taste of steel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Washed down with rusty water in a tin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But standing outdoors hungry, in the cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except in towns at night, is not a sin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, anyway, its standing in the yard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under a ruinous live apple tree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has nothing any more to do with me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except that I remember how of old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One summer day, all day I drove it hard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And someone mounted on it rode it hard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he and I between us ground a blade.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I gave it the preliminary spin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And poured on water (tears it might have been);",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when it almost gayly jumped and flowed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Father-Time-like man got on and rode,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Armed with a scythe and spectacles that glowed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He turned on will-power to increase the load",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And slow me down⁠—and I abruptly slowed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like coming to a sudden railroad station.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I changed from hand to hand in desperation.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wondered what machine of ages gone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This represented an improvement on.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all I knew it may have sharpened spears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And arrowheads itself. Much use for years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had gradually worn it an oblate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its gait,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Appearing to return me hate for hate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(But I forgive it now as easily",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As any other boyhood enemy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose pride has failed to get him anywhere).",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wondered who it was the man thought ground⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The one who held the wheel back or the one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who gave his life to keep it going round?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wondered if he really thought it fair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For him to have the say when we were done.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not for myself was I so much concerned.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh no!⁠—although, of course, I could have found",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A better way to pass the afternoon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than grinding discord out of a grindstone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And beating insects at their gritty tune.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor was I for the man so much concerned.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It looked as if he might be badly thrown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wounded on his blade. So far from caring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I laughed inside, and only cranked the faster,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(It ran as if it wasn’t greased but glued);",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d welcome any moderate disaster",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That might be calculated to postpone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What evidently nothing could conclude.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thing that made me more and more afraid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was that we’d ground it sharp and hadn’t known,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now were only wasting precious blade.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when he raised it dripping once and tried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The creepy edge of it with wary touch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And viewed it over his glasses funny-eyed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only disinterestedly to decide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It needed a turn more, I could have cried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wasn’t there danger of a turn too much?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mightn’t we make it worse instead of better?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was for leaving something to the whetter.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What if it wasn’t all it should be? I’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be satisfied if he’d be satisfied.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}