8.12.2024 – I was out for stars

I was out for stars
wouldn’t come in even if asked
and I hadn’t been.

As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music—hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush’s breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went—
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars:
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked,
And I hadn’t been.

From the poem, Come In, by Robert Frost as published in The Witness Tree, Henry Holt, New York, 1942

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