"The Exposed Nest" by Robert Frost

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 25, 2018   The Exposed Nest   Robert Frost

You were forever finding some new play. So when I saw you down on hands and knees In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay, Trying, I thought, to set it up on end, I went to show you how to make it stay, If that was your idea, against the breeze, And, if you asked me, even help pretend To make it root again and grow afresh. But 'twas no make-believe with you to-day, Nor was the grass itself your real concern, Though I found your hand full of wilted fern, Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover. 'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground The cutter-bar had just gone champing over (Miraculously without tasting flesh) And left defenseless to the heat and light. You wanted to restore them to their right Of something interposed between their sight And too much world at once—could means be found. The way the nest-full every time we stirred Stood up to us as to a mother-bird Whose coming home has been too long deferred, Made me ask would the mother-bird return And care for them in such a change of scene And might our meddling make her more afraid. That was a thing we could not wait to learn. We saw the risk we took in doing good, But dared not spare to do the best we could Though harm should come of it; so built the screen You had begun, and gave them back their shade. All this to prove we cared. Why is there then No more to tell? We turned to other things. I haven't any memory—have you?— Of ever coming to the place again To see if the birds lived the first night through, And so at last to learn to use their wings.                This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   "The Exposed Nest" was published in Mountain Interval (Henry Holt & Company, 1916).   Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. He was the author of many books, including the poetry collections New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923) and A Witness Tree (Henry Holt and Company, 1942). During his lifetime, he received four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and served as the U.S. poet laureate from 1958 to 1959. He died in Boston on January 29, 1963. Poetry by Frost   The Poetry of Robert Frost (Henry Holt & Company, 2002) "Why Not Say" by David Baker "Toy Cloud" by Nathan Hoks "A Baby Running Barefoot" by D. H. Lawrence March Guest Editor: Meghan O'Rourke   Thanks to Meghan O'Rourke, author of Sun in Days (W. W. Norton, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about O'Rourke​ and our other guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038