StoryTitle("caps", "Blueberries") ?>
by Robert Frost
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To the village, through Patterson's pasture to-day: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In the cavernous pail of the first one to come! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And all ripe together, not some of them green ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"I don't know what part of the pasture you mean.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"You know where they cut off the woods—let me see— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It was two years ago—or no!—can it be ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "No longer than that?—and the following fall ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That's always the way with the blueberries, though: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There may not have been the ghost of a sign ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But get the pine out of the way, you may burn ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The pasture all over until not a fern", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And presto, they're up all around you as thick ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And after all really they're ebony skinned: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Does Patterson know what he has, do you think?\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"He may and not care and so leave the chewink ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To gather them for him—you know what he is. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "An excuse for keeping us other folk out.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"I wonder you didn't see Loren about.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"The best of it was that I did. Do you know, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I was just getting through what the field had to show ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And over the wall and into the road, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When who should come by, with a democrat-load ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of all the young chattering Lorens alive, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"He just kept nodding his head up and down. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "You know how politely he always goes by. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But he thought a big thought—I could tell by his eye— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Which being expressed, might be this in effect: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.' \" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"He's a thriftier person than some I could name.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Like birds. They store a great many away. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Just taking what Nature is willing to give, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"I wish you had seen his perpetual bow— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"I wish I knew half what the flock of them know ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of where all the berries and other things grow, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I met them one day and each had a flower ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some strange kind—they told me it hadn't a name.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"I've told you how once not long after we came, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By going to him of all people on earth ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To ask if he knew any fruit to be had ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There had been some berries—but those were all gone. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He didn't say where they had been. He went on: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "'I'm sure—I'm sure'—as polite as could be. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He spoke to his wife in the door, 'Let me see, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Mame, we don't know any good berrying place?' ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It was all he could do to keep a straight face. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It's so long since I picked I almost forget ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How we used to pick berries: we took one look round, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then sank out of sight like trolls underground, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And saw nothing more of each other, or heard, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Unless when you said I was keeping a bird ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Away from its nest, and I said it was you. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "'Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Around and around us. And then for a while ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For when you made answer, your voice was as low ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As talking—you stood up beside me, you know.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"We sha'n't have the place to ourselves to enjoy— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They won't be too friendly—they may be polite— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To people they look on as having no right ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To pick where they're picking. But we won't complain. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.\"", "") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>