Robert Frost (1874–1963). Miscellaneous Poems to 1920. 1920.

5. Fragmentary Blue

(From Harper’s Magazine, July 1920.)

WHY make so much of fragmentary blue

In here and there a bird, or butterfly,

Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,

When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—

Though some savants make earth include the sky;

And blue so far above us comes so high,

It only gives our wish for blue a whet.