Poems by Robert Frost: A Boy's Will and North of Boston

by Robert Frost, Peter Davison (Afterword), William H. Pritchard (Introduction)

The publication of A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914) marked the debut of Robert Frost as a major talent and established him as the true poetic voice of New England. Four of his volumes would win the Pulitzer Prize before his death in 1963, and his body of work has since become an integral part of the American national heritage.

This is the only edition to present these two classics in their original form. A Boy’s Will introduced readers to Frost’s unmistakable poetic voice, and in North of Boston, we find two of his most famous poems, “Mending Wall” and “The Death of the Hired Man.” With an introduction by distinguished critic and Amherst College professor William H. Pritchard, and afterword by poet and critic Peter Davidson, and carefully selected bibliography, this edition stands as a complete and vital introduction to the work of the quintessential modern American poet.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, American, Literature

152 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Flinty, moody, plainspoken and deep, Robert Frost was one of America's most popular 20th-century poets. Frost was farming in Derry, New Hampshire when, at the age of 38, he sold the farm, uprooted his family and moved to England, where he devoted himself to his poetry. His first two books of verse, A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), were immediate successes. In 1915 he returned to the United States and continued to write while living in New Hampshire and then Vermont. His pastoral images of apple trees and stone fences -- along with his solitary, man-of-few-words poetic voice -- helped define the modern image of rural New England. Frost's poems include "Mending Wall" ("Good fences make good neighbors"), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" ("Whose woods these are I think I know"), and perhaps his most famous work, "The Road Not Taken" ("Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- / I took the one less traveled by"). Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times: in 1924, 1931, 1937 and 1943. He also served as "Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress" from 1958-59; that position was renamed as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry (or simply Poet Laureate) in 1986.

Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy... Frost attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard, but did not graduate from either school... Frost preferred traditional rhyme and meter in poetry; his famous dismissal of free verse was, "I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down."

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've taught half a dozen of these poems for forty years, many from memory, first, The Pasture. My Crocket Ridge, Maine, grandparents really had a pasture spring, the cow Polly, and yearly calf--whom Polly defended from the dog Jerome by lifting my brother, in front of the dog, over the stone wall. The spring had great water, down a couple feet, and of course a frog living there. The Tuft of Flowers (the mower spared) I have growing in my back yard, in fact a dozen of them: orange Butterfly Weed, Asclepias Tuberosa. (Perhaps only Pritchard's edition keeps the line, "Finding them Butterfly Weed when I came" after "I left my place to know them by their name.") Speaking of Pritchard, Frost was his interlocutor, and a presence at my undergrad Amherst College. (I published a poem, After the Fall, on JFK and my teacher MacLeish dedicating the Frost Library a month before Dallas. My first poem in that publication, Ars Docentis, compares leading cows like Polly and leading classes: on heifers, "They.. attack afraid/ And retreat feeling real brave. There's/ No understanding them…)
By memory, The Road Not Taken, which every reader, every student, thinks describes their life--that remarkable, emphatic use of line end as conversational pause in colloquial repetition: "I--/ I took the one less travelled by…." Such a New England poem, yet written in England, perhaps recalling NE.
Lots of my Frost teaching was aloudreading in class: say, Home Burial. One student, narrator, I the husband, another student, the wife despising the husband, who says a remarkable line, the reason I grabbed the part: "What was it brought you up to think it the thing/ To take your mother-loss…"
"What was it" does not sound like a pentameter, but it is with one extra syllable on the last foot.
Or aloudreading, because my students were 2/3 women, average age mid-twenties, A Servant to Servants, where students read it all--a woman driven crazy by housing her mad brother-in-law, but mostly by servitude, though living with great views. Driving in N NH I think of her Lake Willoughby: "There's more to it than just window-views/ And living by a lake." I think that in my hometown too, all the ocean-views. (No more to it?) The best definition of "housework" in all lit: "doing/ Things over and over that just won't stay done."
"Death of the Hired Man" features a farm couple, Warren and Mary, and the independent old hired man Silas, who often left at haying time. I know about that, from my Gramp's 40 acre farm on Crockett ridge, where I drove his Model B tractor pulling a mower or hay rake. (The road's now named for Gramp, ralph richardson road.) Silas has aged, but has a plan to "ditch the meadow." Mary says Warren must accept Silas at his word,
"He's come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You musn't laugh at him"
Why? We learn, Death with Dignity.
By the way, best definitions of "home" in this poem: Warren,
"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in."
"I should have called it
Something you somehow haven't to deserve." Mary answers (82)

Another feminist poem, "The Housekeeper" Estelle leaves John, the man who never married her, he the speaker along with her mother, who says, "You know how men will be ridiculous"(138). We only find near the end that Estelle left and...married.

In his penultimate poem, "The Wood-Pile," Frost again takes a walk, in winter snow,
"I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted." (156)
Brought to mind Emerson's poem "To a Titmouse [Chickadee]" where he's in a blizzard, 3 miles from
home, saved by a Chickadee, "this scrap of valor" whose tune says, like Caesar, "Ve-ni Vi-di Vi-ci."
See the Addendum to my new book, "Conversations with Birds: the Metaphysics of Bird and Human Communication."

Some of these he wrote in high school, like "My Butterfly" age 18, even then fine lines like the butterfly's "airy dalliance" and "the soft mist/ of my regret"(68)

Even one of the lesser (earlier?) poems, the sonnet Vantage Point, tells how "tired of trees, I seek again mankind" so he walks at dawn to a hill where "cattle keep the lawn" and he can see far off white homes of men, then farther, a hill of burial; "living or dead" his choices. By noon, too much of these, he has "but to turn on my arm," and "lo, my breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze," he smells the earth and plant,:"I look into the crater of the ant" (48). Great last line: Frost a fine critic of his own writing, puts his best line last.

[Reem Ghabbany · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve read quotes for Robert Frost and loved them so I bought this book but oh my god!! This was painful!! It was so bad!! I couldn’t get through it and I skipped a lot of pages!!

[Gohnar23 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books read & reviewed: 2️⃣🥖4️⃣0️⃣0️⃣


╔⏤⏤⏤╝❀╚⏤⏤⏤╗


4️⃣🌟, wonderful 👍
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➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗

I should like to say that the first book is an absolute majestic piece of poetry everything is so in death and it's certainly seen that these poems have a sense of underlying hidden meanings in different circumstances, the second story doe...not a poem. I guess

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*Pre-Read✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Eh, its a poetry collection

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly, a skilled poet. Remarkable how well he does dialogue story-telling in poetic form. Makes one wonder why some prose authors are so verbose.

[Nicole ✨Reading Engineer✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this for my literature class, and I have to say it was just okay. Nothing special and it had good messages, but like most literature and older poems, just not for me. I'm so glad I only have one boo left in this course, THEN I'LL BE FREE!!!

[Azriel Najeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the poetry part, but I couldn’t read the short stories I even skipped most of them 🌚

[Audrey Greathouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

While not my favorite collection of Robert Frost's work, I did find it intensely enjoyable to go through and look at his earliest published work in isolation. I preferred A Boy's Will over North of Boston, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Given my druthers, I always gravitate to lyrical poetry over narrative and blank verse. Favorite poems include the piquant melancholy of "My November Guest" and the subtle, sweet "Stars." I would say both "Wind and Window Flower"and "Rose Pogonias" did a great job of capturing very specific sentiments (unrequited love and the beauty of secret places, respectively) and "Pan with Us" reminded me of my beloved Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.

As far as North of Boston goes, I recommend the famous "Mending Wall" because it lives up to the hype that everyone gives it (a fact I only now have come to appreciate.) "Home Burial" and "The Black Cottage" also resonated with me in tristful little ways. Of course, my hands-down favorite from North of Boston is "Blueberries." I highly recommend, even if you aren't the type to sit down and read straight poetry, that you search for these poems and get a flavor of Robert Frost's early work, both lyrical and narrative.

[Anoud Q]

I started reading this poetry book for Robert Frost after loving his poem "Bereft" which is a favorite poem of mine and although I enjoyed some of the poems at the beginning of this book and I may get back to them later; I discovered later on that the second part of this book which takes most of the pages consist of short stories rather than poems and I tried my best to go through the first one, but I found myself struggling acutely to fathom it or even to relish it which was awful, so I decided to have an end for this. I still would love to check his other poems, but never his short stories.

[mora · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked a boy’s will a lot, but north of boston… not so much…..
overall 3,5 stars for the whole collection, but i honestly preferred the poems about nature and daily life things over the too long and boring ones in the second part of the book.
the ones i liked the most and would like to come back to sometime:
a boy's will
-my november guest
-spoils of the dead
-a line-storm song
-october
-reluctance

north of boston
-home burial
-good hours

[Pat Gaudreault · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly new to poetry and I appreciated these collections, as a first foray into Robert Frost’s works. I feel I got a nice look at the fundamental type of poetry in A Boy’s Will, and then the narrative style short-stories for a step up. The narrative style is not really my thing, but I enjoyed some of the quirks that come along with his classic-American-life imagery.

My favourites were: October, Good Hours, and The Mountain

[Humaira Tihi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neither my rating nor this statement may align with the understanding I had after reading these poems. Poetry is not to be perceived just by a glance. It requires mood, requires atmosphere and a hustle-bustle of thoughts and all.

I'll collect all these books one by one and then read again & again. I will explore the versatile texture of words that only poets can sew...

[John Reis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frost’s New England is a cold forbidding place. And it can be seen and felt in this first collection of his poems.

I particularly liked “An Equal Sacrifice”, “The Tuft of Flowers”, and “Pan with Us” from A Boy's Will. 4/5.

North of Boston is a very different thing. I very much disliked the long poems. 1/5.

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I take great comfort in Frost's having published his first book at 40.

[Sami Al-Khalili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this style of poetry is not my favourite, Frost demonstrates a traditional pastorale expression of the lay of the land. I felt nostalgic to the times where I got to read his work in middle school and high school.

I found a couple poems that I’ll return to.

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came upon a fork in the road
and I went straight.
A tree was there and I bumped my head.
Now I'm dead.
Nature sucks.

[Layla ライラ · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭒ 3.5 ⭒
A masterpiece!

This book is divided into two types of poetry styles: rural (A Boy’s Will) and conversational (North of Boston).

I loved the rural part more; it’s filled with natural and peaceful atmosphere.

I’m not into poetry and hardly know anything about it, this book was unconditional pick, I just wanted to read something out of my radar. Basically, I needed a refreshing change.
And it was fortunately a great pick.

[Jeremy Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a year of reading modern poetry, off and on, amidst the pages of fiction and non-fiction, the works of talent and the works of coffee table fluff, Robert Frost feels like a breath of fresh air, a place in time, in a prior time, well before the world of the poets I read today. A great deal of Frost needs a second, third, and fourth read to follow, reads I am in no hurry to do right now. But despite all the traditional rhymes, I found reading Frost like sitting in someone else’s dream, watching things familiar and unfamiliar, like a fly on the wall of another world, in that other time.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing really wild and crazy in this volume. As normally happens, the poems that one has run into before are the best ones (thus, they have been passed on). "Mending Wall" and "After Apple Picking" were the only two I knew previously, and I'm pretty sure they were the best two in there. However, there is some other neat stuff to be found: he has a lot of long, dialogue poems that tell Hemmingway-esqe stories, in addition to some exciting little love poems I didn't know were in his vein. "Asking for Roses" and "A Line-Storm Song" were my two new favorites. In any case, even if this isn't quite his best stuff, you can tell that the guy is a master. Some of his lines just stick with you. "Three foggy mornings and one rainy day/ will rot the best birch fence a man can build" is nothing short of haunting in context. I'd still go with a volume of selected poems though, for an introduction.

[Brian Wasserman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book easily lives up to its recognition, for my appreciation for Frost has only deepened to greater level. The real two gems are, "The Wind and The Window Flower" and " The November Guest", in both of these poems Frost goes beyond the borders of mere observation and into the realm of metaphor. The Wind and The Window Flower depict two souls indifferent to any venture into love, the last line alludes to some pangs of regret since the wind is a hundred miles away and the opportunity is far gone.

[Anders · Rating 3 out of 5]

From “Reluctance”

“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.”

*

Hello there dear readers!

This one was another one I found at my library's used bookstore. That place is turning into a real gold mine for me. A few reasons for picking it: I've never really read much Frost, maybe a poem here and there (of course, everyone's read “The Road Not Taken”), let alone a complete collection. I saw these two were his first published collections and I do like to start at the beginning. I needed another poetry book to go with and didn't want to pick up another Ashbery yet.

Frost is one of those American poets that got so huge it's hard to know what to say, but I know enough about poetry (so I suppose) to make some comments on these works. I'll keep this short with a few quotes that illustrate my points.

A Boy's Will is nice, well-metered poetry. The rhyming is a little annoying but it's not too bad and it fits. The content reads as very pastoral to me, informed by more contemporary traditions of pastoral (more Marvell than Theocritus). It's got the nice tropes of rustic scenes, extolling the working class, flowers, hospitality, etc. And in the second work, this continues but in short story form, a few of which are dialogues.

Here's a line that speaks to the idyllic musings of the pastoral life:
“The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”

Here's one that summons notions of family, community, and homecoming:
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”

Here's some lines that's pretty explicitly pastoral but has the unique character of Frost:
“There are bees in this wall.” He struck the clapboards,
Fierce heads looked out; small bodies pivoted.
We rose to go. Sunset blazed on the windows.

In an interview with Harvey Breit, Frost said: “One thing I care about, and wish young people could care about, is taking poetry as the first form of understanding. If poetry isn’t understanding all, the whole world, then it isn’t worth anything.”

I both like and don't like this quote. I like it because it elevates poetry. Poetry is awesome and more people should think so and feel its importance. I don't like it because Frost is putting on airs thinking he knows what poetry is. Maybe he does. Seems like every mature poet starts taking all the guiding principles of how they've written poetry in the past to be a collection of the criteria of what makes poetry good. I'd like to think I would be more cautious about doing that, if I were ever to become anything close to a real poet (don't hold your breath).

Anyway, easy to recommend since it's so short, but “Death of a Hired Man” might be the only one that I would label unskippable.

Here's another little selection I liked. I like the contemplative tone of things in general.

“For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.”

[Paul Lyons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can not say I fully understand poetry, at least the non-Shakespearean kind. It's mysterious, sometimes enigmatic tone and structure if too often an unsolved mystery to me. That said, even without a complete grasp of its artistry and value, I nevertheless did like and appreciate the collected works found in this slim volume called "Poems by Robert Frost: A Boy's Will; North of Boston." Apparently these collections from the first decade of the twentieth century were among the poet's first to be noticed, and given acclaim.

At first, I approached Frost's poems as I would a work of fine art, allowing the impression of the poetic words and meter be my guide, exclusively. Later, in some of Frost's longer poems especially (in the "North of Boston" collection), I felt willingly locked into actual stories. These stories were rich, narrative tales expressed in meter and rhyme (blank verse??), with more often than not, unresolved endings...resolves that were never quite resolves. Yet I liked them all the same, most of them.

"Mending Wall" was a favorite. Who could not love the line "Good fences make good neighbors." Also enjoyed "The Mountain," as it reminded me of Kafka's "The Castle," with its enigmatic mountain a place of unattainable mystery. "The Black Cottage" was another good one, especially the lines "Most of the change we see in life Is due to truths being in and out of favor." Great stuff. "Blueberries" was another favorite, what with its suggestions of paranoia, mischief, and passive-aggressiveness. "The Fear" was a good one as well, evoking the work of Edgar Allen Poe.

So I suppose, in the end, it were the story-poems that drew me in. The shorter works were like ethereal mists, featuring language and meaning that to my sense, never fit. Perhaps in future, I will explore more Robert Frost. I do want to understand the poet better than I have, and re-read this collection, and be glad.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice read. While the first part is not as polished as the second half there is a good reason for that. A Boy's Will are all of his first poems from when he was a boy. While good they are do not have the depth some of the later ones do. But they have a wonderful innocence about nature and the world around him that is lacking in the later works. I found the early ones charming and the later ones thought provoking. Especially the one on the Death of a Hired Man as well as the one about the couple who lost a baby, Home Burial. But they both seemed unfinished. As if only part of the story was untold. Well worth finding to read though. Most of us only know one or two of his works from college. Usually Birches, Mending Wall, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, or The Road Not Taken. And that is about all we know. Early works such as A Prayer in Spring, Stars, Flower-Gathering, and the one I liked the most, Asking for Roses are all worth finding. In this modern world of the sound bite we are used to reading fast and skimming our way through things. Poetry does not let you. You have to focus on what you are reading and taking that mental break of slowing our thoughts down is worth it. Reading some of his are like taking a mental walk through the meadow and well worth it.

[Maria the wanderer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, I am fascinated by this magical poet... I needed a book of his, so I can enjoy his writings and get to know him more, so how better to do it than reading his first steps to poetry?
He has the ability to take a plain subtle thing, like mowing or wandering, and reveal unimaginable beauty. Because beauty is just a perspective: in a gale you can see fear or you can see adventure.

As expected, most of his subjects derive from the rural life in America, mainly in Autumn or Winter, so we get a lot of images of nature and mental travelling.
What was a surprise, was the food for thought derived from the unconventional social themes of the short stories (in North of Boston), which were narrated beautifully!

The only thing that troubled me was that in some texts the language was a little too difficult for me. I had to read the same thing several times, so I was kind of losing the flow. However, this might not be an issue for native english speakers!
Enjoy the poerty! <3

[Matthew Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

The edition I have combines Frost's first two collections, "A Boy's Will" and "North of Boston."

I really liked the poems in A Boy's Will. The poems are poignant in their simplicity and he's adventurous with the rhyme scheme in a way I learned from. I particularly liked the poem "The Tuft of Flowers" about the narrator who feels like he's working together in a field with the man who mowed the field before him, even though he's never met him.

I enjoyed "North of Boston" less. Most of the pieces in the collection seem more like prose narratives than poetry. Most of them were short story length, and they were a chore to read through because I wasn't interested in most of the stories. I'm more interested in Frost as a poet doing playful things with rhyme. That said, "Mending Wall" and "Blueberries" were highlights of this collection.

[Eli Eagleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read A Boy’s Will by Robert Frost, a collection of poems that explores themes like nature, solitude, and personal growth. While reading, I found many of the poems to be long and slow, sometimes making the book boring. However, a few poems stood out like “Into My Own,” which captured the desire for independence honestly and in a relatable way. Frost’s descriptions, such as walking through “the muffled forest,” were sometimes vivid and immersive, though not every poem had that same impact. This book showed me that poets often write a lot of work before creating something compelling. Even the poems I didn’t enjoy helped me understand how writers develop their style over time. Overall, I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. I recommend it to readers interested in some of the earlier versions of poetry. It was a good read, even if it didn’t always interest me.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

2019 book 9: I didn’t read this exact edition of A Boy’s Will and North of Boston, but I did read both collections. As much as I wanted to enjoy this, it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I found it very difficult to get through. The content wasn’t very relatable to me and I found myself going back and rereading stuff a lot because a) I didn’t understand it or b) my mind wandered off and I got distracted. I probably could’ve looked a lot of these poems up to gain a better understanding of them but I couldn’t be bothered. I will say this though: Robert Frost is very good at describing nature and painting a picture in the mind of the reader. Maybe I’ll give his work another chance someday, but for now thank goodness I’m done this book.

[Sean]

Wow, Frost's first collection was bad. It's actually encouraging as a poet to read those stinkers in the first part of this Dover edition and then continue on to a second collection improved by an order of magnitude.

His longer poems depart from the popular picture of Frost I've heard. He was certainly looking back at the 19th century (fair enough--1914 I think for the second collection). The long poems remind me of Browning's monologues, but at times, with the little scenes and dialogues, I think he's aiming for Shakespeare. A surprising number of these longer poems give women's voices prominence, which was another surprise.

Certainly as the poems get longer one sees something more bleak and weird peeking through.

[Cate Tedford · Rating 5 out of 5]

very glad i read this. beautiful reflections on nature and pastoral traditions. not exactly my style of poetry but enjoyed it for its intrinsic value in the world of literature and bc my grandparents loved frost.

“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 except the end
Of a love or a season?”
— Reluctance

“You can hear the small buzz saws whine, the big saw,
Caterwaul to the hills around the village
As they both bite the wood. It’s all our music.
One ought as a good villager to like it.
No doubt it has a sort of prosperous sound,
And it’s our life.”
— The Self-Seeker

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I teach several poems by Robert Frost that are featured in my 4th grade ELA curriculum, and I decided it was time to actually become more familiar with Frost, and his poetry. I didn't know that Frost had won 4 Pulitzers--the most ever, though it is a three-way tie--and that it was his earliest collections that earned him the first prizes. The more Frost I read the more I like it, though I can't put my finger on exactly why. I had a very shallow literary idea of Robert Frost in my head ("two roads diverged in a yellow wood" etc, really a good poem, but perhaps the over-saturation of that one poem, and the mental image of the literary equivalent to a Thomas Kinkade painting) but there is really a depth and reality in Frost's poetry, and it's been good spending time here.

[Jemina Wyllie]

By the way,
The boy said it will be so easy to kill me.
Since I'm testing my ears and eyes these days, I thought I should check whether he really said or thought it or not. Well, then I saw he thinks that I'm scared and feeling fearful. Since this part came out wrong, so I guess he didn't really think that?
Well, even if he did, though, hmm, how do I put it. Death will come to everyone in due time because it has been prescribed by God. Since you feel so turned on with the thought of killing others, I guess, you haven't been dead yet? And you thought, the thought of death will scare someone who freely travels around through the earth and planes, even hells and heavens?
I wonder what they are keeping you with.
Lies perhaps.