Robert Frost

WHEN the wind works against us in the dark,   
And pelts with snow   
The lowest chamber window on the east,   
And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,   
The beast,          5 
‘Come out! Come out!’—   
It costs no inward struggle not to go,   
Ah, no!   
I count our strength,   
Two and a child,   10 
Those of us not asleep subdued to mark   
How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,—   
How drifts are piled,   
Dooryard and road ungraded,   
Till even the comforting barn grows far away   15 
And my heart owns a doubt   
Whether ’tis in us to arise with day   
And save ourselves unaided. 

 

From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine.