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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


PURSUIT OF THE WORD by ROBERT FROST

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: WHAT, SHALL THERE BE WORD SINGLE TO EXPRESS
Last Line: OVER THE BLACKENED HILLS THAT HID THE SUN?
Subject(s): LANGUAGE; WORDS; VOCABULARY;

What, shall there be word single to express
Two Cinderella slippers on the hearth,
Two birds of the air the fowler brings to earth,
Two vowel sounds that haply coalesce,
Two such divinities as came to bless
The white swan-mother, Leda, at a birth,
Two prettiest souls that make of pain and mirth,
Presence and absence, one long life-caress?

Yet none that leaves the vision less than double
Which through bare boughs I saw this April night,
And weds in utterance what was really one,
Venus and new Moon, water-drop and bubble,
Equally hanging at an hour's height
Over the blackened hills that hid the sun?



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