Stars

How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!

As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

Robert Lee Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet renowned for his depictions of rural New England life, his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations. Frost's work frequently employed themes from the natural world and championed common speech. He received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and was a much-honored poet of his era. Some of his most famous works include 'The Road Not Taken,' 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,' and 'Mending Wall.'

Robert Lee Frost

The Line-Gang

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

Acceptance

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

The Housekeeper

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

The Code

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Onset

Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.

Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured again maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper's silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender Apr...

Robert Lee Frost

Fireflies In The Garden

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

Robert Lee Frost

Snowflakes.

    Of specious weight like tissue freight
The snowflakes are - in sparkle pure
    As the rich parure
A lovely queen were proud to wear;
As volatile, as fine and rare
As thistle-down dispersed in air,
    Or bits of filmy lace;
Like nature's tear-drops strewn around
That beautify and warm the ground,
    But melt upon my face.

    A ton or more against my door
They lie, and look, in form and tint,
    Like piles of lint,
When war's alarum roused the land,
Wrought out by woman's loyal hand
From linen rag, and robe, and band -
    From garments cast aside -
In hospital, on battle-field
The shattered limb that bound and healed,
    Or stanched life's ebbing tide.

    I see the gleam of lake and stream,
The silver glint...

Hattie Howard

Stars

The naked stars, deep beyond deep,
Burn purely through the nervèd night.
Over the narrow sleep
Of men tired of light;

Deep within deep, as clouds behind
Huge grey clouds hidden gleaming rise,
Untroubled by sharp wind
In cold desert skies.

Cold deserts now with infinite host
Of gathered spears at watch o'er small
Armies of men lost
In glooms funereal.

O bitter light, all-threatening stars,
O tired ghosts of men that sleep
After stern mortal wars
'Neath skies chill and steep.

These mortal hills, this flickering sea,
This shadowy and thoughtful night,
Throb with infinity,
Burn with immortal light.

John Frederick Freeman

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it, it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars, on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Robert Lee Frost

Snow-Flakes.

I wonder what they are,
    These pretty, wayward things,
That o'er the gloomy earth
    The wind of heaven flings.

Each one a tiny star,
    And each a perfect gem;
What magic in the art
    That thus has fashioned them.

What beauty in the flake
    That falls upon my hand;
And yet this tiny thing
    My will cannot command.

No two are just alike,
    And yet they are the same;
I wonder if my thought
    Could give to each a name.

Unlike the fragile flowers
    That love the sun's warm rays,
These snow-flakes love the cold,
    And die on sunny days!

So dainty and so pure,
    How beautiful they are;
And yet the slightest touch
    Their purity may mar.

They must be gazed upon,
 ...

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick