The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.
As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull
The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be--
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.
They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?
Robert Frost
I love this poem by Robert Frost. If you click here you may see some lovely beach photos from Audrey's blog. This post is her re-cap of 2012. Please read it when you get the chance. It is a beautiful post that she has written, full of love and hope. With her great love of nature, it is a great pleasure to read her keen observations.
Let me know if you like this poem as much as I do.
I would love to be on a beach looking at the sea...I'm hoping to see the ocean this spring when we go out west to visit my Son...I could gaze all day at the waves. I do love this poem. I love Robert Frost. My sweet Aunt/Godmother (who passed away 2yrs. ago) loved him too and introduced his work to me when I was little..loved it then and now. His name always makes me think of her.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kathy! It is simple (much like Robert Frost's poetry) but it speaks to me.
DeleteI hope you get to see the ocean in the Spring! Happy that this brings back good memories for you! :-)
Oh yes- I love that poem. I have always loved his poetry...it is just so touching and evokes such a mood, doesn't it? I hope you had a wonderful day- xo Diana
ReplyDeleteThanks, Diana! I haven't spoken much of poetry but it is something I have always enjoyed. Take care! xx
Deletei should bow my head: i taught robert frost to 8th graders and have never read this poem before now, i wish i could write like him and like dr. seuss.
ReplyDeletehappy new year, kay
xo
I just found this poem myself! Happy that you found it on my post, that really makes me glad! :-)
DeleteMy son gave me a t-shirt for Christmas that says, "Trust me, I'm A Doctor"...with a photo of the Cat in The Hat in the background! He knows my love for Dr. Seuss!
A lovely poem1 I love the sea. We are lucky enough to live 2 blocks away and we love swimming in the sea and lying on the sand.
ReplyDeleteHey Paul!
DeleteI'm glad you like this too. Two blocks away from the beach, you are so lucky!
I am lucky enough to live a few minutes walk from the sea, so this poem resonates with me, Kay. I hadn't read it before.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked this. I just found this poem myself, so I had to share it.
DeleteI have this poem in a book of Poems on my bokshelf. My dad gave it to me about 6 months before he died so it is very precious. As I am reading your blog, I am sitting gazing out to sea. The waves are crashing over the island today so it looks like I shall have a very bracing walk with the dog. Thank you for this blog Kay and also for the one the other day and all those beautiful Stone Mountain pictures - I can never see too many of them!
ReplyDeleteHey Pat!
DeleteYou paint a pretty picture with your words. I can just see those waves crashing and that bracing walk in the fresh, salty air!
I'm glad this poem brings back happy memories for you.
"Recall a happy memory as often as you like, you can never wear it out!"
I hope to get to Stone Mountain soon, and share even more of "our" mountain!
Kay, The sea ia a major draw for people wanting vacations, so it seems. I love Robert Frost poetry. I visited your friend's blog. Sweet photos of a loving family. xoxo,Susie
ReplyDeleteHey Susie!
DeleteGlad you went to see Audrey's blog. Guess what?! I have never met Audrey, but I feel like she is my friend, she was one of my first followers, and all my followers are friends to me! That includes you!
(I do hope to meet Audrey one day, she is not TOO far from the Atlanta area!)
When I was a young girl my family moved to a small hill farm on the Little Sugar River in North Charlestown. That part of New Hampshire was right out of a Frost poem- the snowy woods, old cellar holes of burned out farmhouses, the spring peepers, the hermit thrushes. Oh the wild strawberries that grew there!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds so lovely!
DeleteI shouldn't wonder that you are a poet yourself!
Oh, yes, it's a beautiful poem, and true. The sea's mystery keeps us glued to watching it, i think.
ReplyDeleteThe mystery of the sea, so beautiful.
DeleteThanks, Mimi!
Thank you for introducing me to this Robert Frost poem. I am a definite sea looker!
ReplyDeleteThank you also for the link to your friend Audrey's post. So poignant! So loving! So hopeful!
DeleteGlad you liked the poem and Audrey's blog, she is such a sweetheart, I love to read what she has to say about nature, her family, everything!
DeleteIt's a beautiful poem and like all good poetry very true. Who can resist watching the waves? :)
ReplyDelete"Like all good poetry, very true". Exactly so, thank you!
DeleteGreat poem. But I wince whenever I read anything by Frost because he got a fellow professor at his college fired just for being gay. Just goes to show that even schmucks can create a nice poem or nice idea. I think that's an important lesson to learn!
ReplyDelete
DeleteDid Robert Frost really do that? I tend to give someone the benefit of the doubt, especially when they are dead and can no longer defend themselves.
I read a bit and found the following:
Within a decade, however, the poet's public image was shattered by the appearance of the second volume of Lawrance Thompson's authorized biography, Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915-1937 (1970), which reviewers took at face value to be an accurate account of a man whom Helen Vendler deemed a "monster of egotism" (New York Times Book Review, 9 Aug. 1970). Although Frost later came to have grave misgivings about his choice, he had designated Thompson his official biographer in 1939. For whatever reason, the poet felt unable to renounce that decision despite his awareness of Thompson's frequently unsympathetic, even hostile constructions of his attitudes and conduct. Although reviewers perceived in Thompson, as Vendler put it, "an affectation of fairness," they tended to subscribe, nevertheless, to the "monster-myth" that poisoned Frost's reputation. Evidence that he was not a wrecker of others' lives was soon at hand in the form of The Family Letters of Robert and Elinor Frost, edited by Arnold Grade (1972). More than a decade would pass before the tide was turned: first by W. H. Pritchard's Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered (1984) and then by Stanley Burnshaw's Robert Frost Himself (1986), which enabled Publishers' Weekly to state that "the unfortunately influential 'monster-myth' stands here convincingly corrected."
I like the poem and don't remember ever seeing it before, though I have always loved Frost's work. As with so many other poets, his life was an imperfect one, full of sorrow. But I agree that it's far too easy for us to pass judgment on someone we never knew personally, who lived in a different world, a different time and under totally different circumstances. I try to take what I hear or read about people with the same "benefit of doubt" that I would want others to grant to me.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear!
DeleteI've never read this poem before, but I sure do love it. I can picture that beach. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kay!
Delete