A Girl's Garden

Robert Lee Frost 1874 (San Francisco, California) – 1963 ( Boston, Massachusetts)



A neighbor of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing.
  
One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
And he said, "Why not?"
  
In casting about for a corner
He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
And he said, "Just it."
  
And he said, "That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm."
  
It was not enough of a garden
Her father said, to plow;
So she had to work it all by hand,
But she don't mind now.
  
She wheeled the dung in a wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load,
  
And hid from anyone passing.
And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weed.
  
A hill each of potatoes,
Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
And even fruit trees.
  
And yes, she has long mistrusted
That a cider-apple
In bearing there today is hers,
Or at least may be.
  
Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.
  
Now when she sees in the village
How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
She says, "I know!
  
"It's as when I was a farmer..."
Oh never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
To the same person twice.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:27 min read
9

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCB DEXE DFXF XGXG HIXI JKXK BLHL XMXM CXXN NHBH AJXJ DOXO
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,381
Words 293
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Robert Lee Frost

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime and is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America's rare "public literary figures, almost an artistic institution." He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont.  more…

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