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Home  »  Mountain Interval  »  25. The Line-gang

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

25. The Line-gang

HERE come the line-gang pioneering by.

They throw a forest down less cut than broken.

They plant dead trees for living, and the dead

They string together with a living thread.

They string an instrument against the sky

Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken

Will run as hushed as when they were a thought.

But in no hush they string it: they go past

With shouts afar to pull the cable taut,

To hold it hard until they make it fast,

To ease away—they have it. With a laugh,

An oath of towns that set the wild at naught

They bring the telephone and telegraph.