Robert Frost Speaks

In quiet times, we re-read old friends like Robert Frost, seeing what we missed before. He loved New England life and snow, being in a sleigh, walking the land, sitting at a sill to “watch his woods fill.” He had his lines, with a bit of mystery.

We remember him for poems like “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” That one is epic, deep as the woods he plumbs with tumbling lines before Christmas.

“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”

The miles left, so some say, were years he had yet to live. After penning that poem in 1923, he would live another 40 years, yet never fully explain repeating that last line.

Another of his best, “The Road Not Taken,” is more about what never was, what might have been, and the promise of pursuing what others do not, taking the bet, embracing uncertainty without regret.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Oddly, both these poems are relevant again, the first causing pause, the second making us think for ourselves, not get prodded down a well-worn lane. But Frost was also a weigher of what mattered and mattered more. Much as he liked hard work – and he did –it was friends he most adored.

If any poem in his pantheon reminds us of what matters, to me it is the one below. If only those who shun discussion and put their heads down would come up for air, I think Frost would nod in their direction, commend them just for being there.

This one is a favorite. It is entitled “A Time to Talk.”

“When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.”

What is then is it, this notion of a friendly visit, that we now turn away? If there were a time in this republic to listen somehow, is it not now? What would Frost say? No idea. I do know he wrote with heart, love of history, a bit of mystery.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!