The Pasture
by Robert Frost
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.
When I was thirteen, I was given a book called:
You Come Too
Favorite Poems For Young Readers
by Robert Frost
I read this particular poem over and over until I knew it by heart. I didn't know what a "pasture spring" was being a town girl, but I knew I wanted to live near one and have a country life with farm animals. And now I do. I have a pasture spring and a house spring and many other springs that come off the hill above us and go nowhere. Every once in a while, my husband and the dogs trek up and he does indeed clean it out. Once it was plugged with a pink salamander, though we called it a newt in honor of Gussie Fink-Nottle after a Wodehouse character.
The spring never dries up. Pure water that never stops moving. It has furnished water for this house since it was built in the 1800s. It is a little miracle to me.
The poem has some of my favorite words which aren't heard too much today: sha'n't, fetch, and totters. They have such a beautiful sound.
I find my speech getting so sloppy - picking up regionalisms and cutting words short. You'd think I"d know better!
ReplyDeleteOh, I love regionalisms, and regional accents. They are a way of saying, hey I'm from Texas or Nebraska or Maine. Too, I think spoken language is rarely as lovely or thoughtful as written.
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