Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World Page #5

He seemed to like it.

Then presently he said,

You better run along home.

Im going to review this book.

Just like that.

And I ran along home.

But Where he made the mistake was...

he made so sure that

Mussolini was invincible.

See?

And Ezra felt that Way.

He bet oh the Wrong horse.

Still, What he did is a brave-

Pound- He's a kind of a terror.

[ Chuckles ]

The world has got that...

kind of person too.

We didn't get credit enough

for not killing him.

[ Man Chuckles]

People blamed us...

because we imprisoned him,

you know...

when we should have killed him...

for treason.

That was all it was.

Just plain treason, that's all.

That's-

There's a lot- There's been some

very great treason in the World.

George Washington

and Thomas Jefferson.

- All of 'em.

- [Students Laugh ]

If this be treason,

make the most of it.

Patriotism is just the same.

How are you going to take

your patriotism?

I said the other day to somebody...

I was so cross with a lot of irritability

in the world about the United States...

that I wish they'd just all

shut up and start singing...

uh-

Uh, America the Beautiful.

[ Man Chuckles]

For Katherine Lee Bates-

I knew the old lady that wrote that.

It's a very lovely kind of patriotism.

It's not offensive.

There's more to it than all that.

But you're so tired of picking flaws...

and talking against the greatest

country that has ever existed so far.

And if we don't know

how good it is, see?

If we don't know how good it is-

Do we?

If we don't know how good it is-

I keep saying that.

The Russians know how good we are.

Everything the Russians say,

they say in our direction.

Then-

That some of the new critics

have found that I am a terror.

The things that I have been

all reading you- terrific, terrible.

[ Muttering ]

[Audience Laughs]

Listen- Listen to this,

I was saying as I came over...

I'd tell a funny case of it.

There is a little poem of mine,

an old one, goes like this-

The Way a crow

shook down on me.

The dust of snow

from a hemlock tree.

Has given my heart

a change of mood...

and saved some part

of a day I had rued.

See now, just look at that.

Fair and square.

The Way a crow shook down on me.

The dust of snow from a hemlock tree.

Has given my heart

a change of mood...

and saved some part

of a day I had rued.

And someone says to me,

Very sinister poem.

[Audience Laughing Loudly,

Applauding ]

And I said, Sinister?

You know.

He said, Yes. The crow.

The crow is a black bird.

I said- And I said...

The crow appears

all sorts of ways, but all right.

I don't argue.

And then he said-

And I said, What more?

He said, The hemlock tree.

And I said, Yeah?

- [Audience Laughs]

- [ indistinct]

And he said, What, Socrates?

Socrates, you know.

Death of Socrates.

[ Mutters ]

You get surprises in this world

I never thought of.

I live with hemlock trees...

and its not the way

that Socrates drank at all, you know?

And ifs all around us, the tree.

Im partly just as much city

as I am country.

But I am a little more country than city.

And I know What a hemlock tree is.

[Audience Laughs]

[ Frost Reciting ] It takes all sorts

of in- and outdoor schooling...

to get adapted to my kind of fooling.

Sometimes I feel very brazen.

Then sometimes Im scared.

I don't know why.

I think ifs because of some lack

of some sustaining positiveness...

that I Want to do something to people.

If I don't have that wish

to do somethin' to 'em...

I feel sort of scared.

I always felt that with a class too.

Not tell 'em somethin',

but do somethin' to 'em.

Do somethin' to 'em.

Then I was good.

One of my favorite ways

was to scare 'em...

about What it was to have

What I really call...

an idea.

To say What Ring Lardner

calls a bucketful.

[ Chuckles ]

Say something that is something,

you know?

They write these perfunctory papers

that don't have anything in 'em.

Not one crack to the carload.

Some people seem to think that

if they pile up enough knowledge-

it's like piling up oily rags

in the basement-

that they'll burst into flame

of themselves.

Light the world up.

They say being in school, you know-

Here we're going to dump

a lot of material on you now...

back up this load to you.

And then they say,

ifs coming! Assimilate it!

[ Chuckles ]

And you die under it.

[Wheelbarrow Squeaking ]

They accumulated.

I pity the car I see

going up the street...

taking my swill away

to the clumps somewhere.

[ Chuckling ]

Yeah.

[ Frost Reciting ] Forgive, O Lord,

my little jokes on Thee.

And I'll forgive Thy great,

big one on me.

What's Gods great, big joke on me?

I'd rather not say.

And, uh, the biggest joke of all is...

that Im not saying.

Sometimes I think Im just a joke.

But slowly not caring too much

about that either.

The gamble of life takes bravery,

doesn't it?

They tell about

one soldier beside another...

charging up Marye's Heights

at Fredericksburg...

said to him, You're scared.

And the other fellow said, Yes.

If you were as scared as I am,

you'd run away.

But you got to be brave,

and you got to be bold.

Be brave enough to take your chance

on your own discriminations.

What's right and what's wrong.

What's good and what's bad.

I suppose the most

terrifying thing of all...

would be unjustly shot against-

against the wall.

Whether your legs

would fail you and all that.

You wonder What your courage is.

Now you wonder about everything.

Always Wondering.

See, the fear of God is just that.

The Old Testament says,

more than once, I think...

May my gift, my sacrifice,

be acceptable in Thy sight.

Fear- You got to have that fear...

of some ultimate judgment

beyond the crowd, beyond me.

When you die in battle,

that's What you have to say...

May my life be acceptable

in Thy sight.

May my sacrifice be acceptable

in Thy sight.

That's What you mean by

the fear of God.

Hey.

[ Frost ]

However you work at it.

No matter What you do-

your work, your poetry, your life-

that you bet on,

succeed or fail...

may it be an acceptable

sacrifice on that altar.

Now, I guess Ive about

taken your time.

Im Warned against wearing you out.

[Audience Laughs]

Yeah. I say good night to ya.

[Audience Applauding]

Could you, please, stay-

If you stay standing, I'll say one

little more poem to you. Shall I?

For the last one,

let's make it sweet and sad.

You don't Want to misunderstand me,

but let me see how this goes.

This one I wrote young.

The heart is still aching to seek...

but the feet question, 'Whither?'

Now this is for the farewell.

Ah, when to the heart of man...

was it ever less than a treason...

to go with the drift of things...

to yield with a grace to reason...

and bow and accept the end...

of a love or a season?

And so we had another kind of time

from just digging potatoes.

[Audience Laughs]

And I say good night to you.

Good night.

[Audience Applauding]

[Applause Fades]

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