Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FIVE NOCTURNES, by ROBERT FROST


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FIVE NOCTURNES, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: She always had to burn a light
Last Line: There will come another day
Subject(s): Night; Bedtime


I THE NIGHT LIGHT
She always had to bum a light
Beside her attic bed at night
It gave bad dreams and broken sleep.
But helped the Lord her soul to keep
Good gloom on her was thrown away.
It is on me by night or day,
Who have, as I suppose, ahead
The darkest of it still to dread.

II. WERE I IN TROUBLE
Where I could think of no thoioughfare,
Away on the mountain up far too high,
A blinding headlight shifted glare
And began to bounce down a granite stair
Like a star fresh fallen out of the sky
And I away in my opposite wood
Am touched by that unintimate light
And made feel less alone than I rightly should.
For traveler there could do me no good
Were I m trouble with night tonight.

III. BRAVADO
Have I not walked without an upwaid look
Of caution under stars that very well
Might not have missed me when they shot and fell?
It was a risk I had to take-and took.

IV. ON MAKING CERTAIN ANYTHING
HAS HAPPENED
I could be worse employed
Than as watcher of the void
Whose part should be to tell
What star if any fell.
Suppose some seed-pearl sun
Should be the only one.
Yet still I must report
Some cluster one star short.
I should justly hesitate
To frighten church or state
By announcing a star down
From say the Cross or Crown.
To make sure what star I missed
I should have to check on my list
Every star in sight.
It might take me all night.

V. IN THE LONG NIGHT
I would build my house of crystal
With a solitary friend
Where the cold cracks like a pistol
And the needle stands on end.
We would pour oil on the ingle
And for want of books recite.
We would crawl out filing single
To observe the Northern Light.
If Etookashoo and Couldlooktoo
The Esquimaux should call,
There would be fish raw and cooked too
And enough drink oil for all.
As one rankly warm insider
To another I would say,
We can rest assured on eider
There will come another day.






Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net