Frasi di Robert Lee Frost

pagina 7

“Due strade trovai nel bosco e io, | io scelsi quella meno battuta. | Ed è per questo che sono diverso.”

“La felicità compensa in altezza ciò che le manca in lunghezza.”

“Perché abbandonare una credenza solo perché cessa di essere vera? Aggrappatevi ad essa abbastanza a lungo e… sarà vera ancora una volta, perché così vanno le cose. La maggior parte dei cambiamenti che pensiamo di vedere nella vita sono dovuti a verità che entrano ed escono dal nostro favore.”

“I Boschi sono amabili ombrosi e profondi.
Ma ho promesse da mantenere,
e miglia da percorrere prima di riposare,
e miglia da percorrere prima di riposare.”

“Il cielo offre i suoi scorci solo a coloro che non sono in una posizione da poterlo guardare troppo da vicino.”

“La poesia inizia in delizia e finisce in saggezza.”

“Accumulare sapienza è male quanto accumulare denaro. Una volta o l'altra bisogna cominciare a far partecipi gli altri di ciò che si sa.”

“Buone recinzioni fanno buoni vicini.”

“Il modo migliore per venirne fuori è sempre buttarsi dentro.”

“La poesia è un modo di prendere la vita alla gola.”

“La tua casa è quel posto dove, se ci devi andare, sono costretti a farti entrare.”

“Quand'ero giovane erano i vecchi i miei maestri. | […] Andavo a scuola dai vecchi per imparare il passato. || Ora che sono vecchio ho per maestri i giovani. | Quel che non può modellarsi dev'essere infranto o piegato. | Lezioni mi torturano che riaprono antiche suture. | Vado a scuola dai giovani per imparare il futuro.”

“Tu ti puoi spingere | indietro per un ruscello di luce | al cielo. | E indietro nella storia sul corso | del tempo. | E questa rapidità ti fu data | non per affrettarti | né soprattutto per | andartene | dove vuoi. | Ma perché nella smania di spandersi | del tutto | a te spetti invece il potere di | fermarti.”

“Di chi sono questi boschi, penso di sapere.”

“Deliver us from committees.”

“Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.”

“Take care to sell your horse before he dies.
The art of life is passing losses on.”

“The snake stood up for evil in the Garden.”

“She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease.”

“Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs
Better than all the stalemate an's and ifs.”

“Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.”

“The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it.”

“It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height.
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may take something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.”

“Dust always blowing about the town,
Except when sea-fog laid it down,
And I was one of the children told
Some of the blowing dust was gold.”

“"New order of the ages" did they say?
If it looks none too orderly today,
'Tis a confusion it was ours to start
So in it have to take courageous part.
No one of honest feeling would approve
A ruler who pretended not to love
A turbulence he had the better of.”

“But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax —
And do everything!”

“People are inexterminable — like flies and bed-bugs. There will always be some that survive in cracks and crevices — that’s us.”

“If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes
Will keep my talk from getting overwise,
I'm not the one for putting off the proof.
Let it be overwhelming, off a roof
And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust,
And blind me to a standstill if it must.”

“How many times it thundered before Franklin took the hint! How many apples fell on Newton's head before he took the hint! Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.”

“The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.”

“Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.”

“The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.”

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You´re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you´re two months back in the middle of March.”

“Have I not walked without an upward look
Of caution under stars that very well
Might not have missed me when they shot and fell?
It was a risk I had to take — and took.”

“Do you know,
Considering the market, there are more
Poems produced than any other thing?
No wonder poets sometimes have to seem
So much more businesslike than businessmen.
Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.”

“"Don't let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.”

“Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.”

“Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air”

“If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving.”

“And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope.”

“The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretence of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.”

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.”

“My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."”