#MIDDLEBURY
The Telephone
Robert Frost
“When I was just as far as I could walk
From here to-day,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say –
You spoke from that flower on the window sill –
Do you remember what it was you said?”
“First tell me what it was you thought you heard.”
“Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned my head,
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word –
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say –
Someone said ‘Come’ – I heard it as I bowed.”
“I may have thought as much, but not aloud.”
“Well, so I came.”
About this poem
“The Telephone” was published in “Mountain Interval” (Henry Holt and Company, 1916).
About Robert Frost
Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. His numerous books of poetry include “North of Boston” (Henry Holt and Company, 1918) and “In the Clearing” (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962). He received four Pulitzer Prizes and served as U.S. poet laureate from 1958 to 1959. Frost died in Boston on Jan. 29, 1963.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
This poem is in the public domain. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
