Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

23. Brown’s Descent, or the Willy-nilly Slide

BROWN lived at such a lofty farm

That everyone for miles could see

His lantern when he did his chores

In winter after half-past three.

And many must have seen him make

His wild descent from there one night,

’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything,

Describing rings of lantern light.

Between the house and barn the gale

Got him by something he had on

And blew him out on the icy crust

That cased the world, and he was gone!

Walls were all buried, trees were few:

He saw no stay unless he stove

A hole in somewhere with his heel.

But though repeatedly he strove

And stamped and said things to himself,

And sometimes something seemed to yield,

He gained no foothold, but pursued

His journey down from field to field.

Sometimes he came with arms outspread

Like wings, revolving in the scene

Upon his longer axis, and

With no small dignity of mien.

Faster or slower as he chanced,

Sitting or standing as he chose,

According as he feared to risk

His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,

He never let the lantern drop.

And some exclaimed who saw afar

The figures he described with it,

”I wonder what those signals are

Brown makes at such an hour of night!

He’s celebrating something strange.

I wonder if he’s sold his farm,

Or been made Master of the Grange.”

He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;

He fell and made the lantern rattle

(But saved the light from going out.)

So half-way down he fought the battle

Incredulous of his own bad luck.

And then becoming reconciled

To everything, he gave it up

And came down like a coasting child.

“Well—I—be—” that was all he said,

As standing in the river road,

He looked back up the slippery slope

(Two miles it was) to his abode.

Sometimes as an authority

On motor-cars, I’m asked if I

Should say our stock was petered out,

And this is my sincere reply:

Yankees are what they always were.

Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope

Of getting home again because

He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;

Or even thought of standing there

Until the January thaw

Should take the polish off the crust.

He bowed with grace to natural law,

And then went round it on his feet,

After the manner of our stock;

Not much concerned for those to whom,

At that particular time o’clock,

It must have looked as if the course

He steered was really straight away

From that which he was headed for—

Not much concerned for them, I say:

No more so than became a man—

And politician at odd seasons.

I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold

While I invested him with reasons;

But now he snapped his eyes three times;

Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s

’Bout out!” and took the long way home

By road, a matter of several miles.