I. Frost's Selected Quotations

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1.
The BRAIN is wider than the Sky
For - put them side by side -
The one the other will contain
With ease - and You - beside.

The BRAIN is deeper than the sea
For - hold them - Blue to Blue
The one the other will absorb
As Sponges - Buckets - do,
The Brain is just the WEIGHT of GOD.

For - Heft them - Pound for Pound
They will differ - if they do
As Syllable from Sound.


2.
BEAUTY - be not caused - It Is -
Chase it, and it ceases -
Chase it not, and it abides.

3.
I never spoke with GOD
nor visited in heaven - yet
CERTAIN am I of the spot,
as if the chart were given.

4.
Estranged from BEAUTY - none can be -
-For Beauty is INFINITY -
And power to be finite ceased
Before Identity was leased.

5.
His CHEEK is his Biographer
As long as he can blush.

6.
How DREARY to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
to an admiring boy!

7.
FAITH is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can SEE
But Microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.

8.
To lose one's FAITH -surpass
The loss of an ESTATE -
Because ESTATES can be
Replenished - Faith cannot.

9.
ELYSIUM is as far as to
The very nearest Room
If in that Room a FRIEND await
Felicity or doom.

What fortitude the SOUL contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming Foot -
The opening of a Door.

10.
I MEASURE every GRIEF I meet
With narrow, probing Eyes -
I wonder if It weighs like Mine
Or has an Easier size.

11.
The HEART asks Pleasure - first
And then - Excuse from Pain
And then - these little Anodynes
That deaden suffering.

12.
RENUNCIATION - is a piercing Virtue
The letting go
A Preserve - for an Expectation.

13.
Our JOURNEY had advanced?;
Our feet were almost come
To that old fork in BEING's road,
ETERNITY by term.

14.
Ample make his bed.
Make his bed with awe;
In it wait till JUDGEMENT break
Excellent and fair.

15.
I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet KNOW I how the heather looks
And what a wave must be.

16.
The MOON was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago -
And now she turned Her perfect Face
Upon the World below.
Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde
Her Cheek - a Beryl hewn
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known.
Her Lips of Amber never part
But what must be the smile
Upon Her friend she could confer
Were such Her Silver Will
And what a privilege to be
But the remotest Star
For Certainty She take Her Way
Beside Your palace Door
Her Bonnet is the Firmament
The universe - Her Shoe
The Stars the Trinklets at her Belt
Her Dimities - of Blue.

17.
My life closed twice before its close,
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A Third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

18.
To POSSESS is past the instant
We achieve the JOY
Immortality contented
Were Anomaly.

19.
PRAYER is the little implement
Through which MEN reach
Where Presence - is denied them.
But silence is INFINITY.

20.
The words the happy say
Are paltry melody
But those the SILENT feel
Are beautiful.

21.
There's a certain SLANT of LIGHT,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
of cathedral times.

22.
The SOUL selects her own SOCIETY
Then - shuts the Door
To her divine Majority
Present no more.

23.
A THOUGHT went up my mind today that I have had before ???

24.
OPINION is a flitting thing
But TRUTH outlasts the SUN
If then we cannot own them both
Possess the oldest one.

25.
The TRUTH must dazzle gradually
Or every MAN be blind ??

26. There came a WIND like a Bugle
It quivered through the Grass
And a Green Chill upon the Heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an Emerald Ghost
The doom's electric mocassin
That very instant passed
On a strange Mob of panting Trees
And fences fled away
And Rivers where the Houses ran
Those laughed that lived - that day
The bell within the staple wild
The flying tidings told
How much can come
And much can go
And yet abide the World!

27.
The Morning after WOE
'Tis frequently the Way
Surpasses all that rose before
For utter Jubilee.

28.
A WORD is dead
When it is said,
some say .
I say it just
Begins to live
that day.