The Pasture

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.⁠—You come too.

I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.⁠—You come too.

Where this text comes from

First published in North of Boston (1914). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

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_north-of-boston, epigraph.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). “The Pasture.” First published in North of Boston (1914). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-frost/the-pasture/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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