Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand simply forth,
Heroic in it nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth's unhonored things
Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout greets the daring one.
But always God speaks at the end:
'One thought in agony of strife
The bravest would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you give the assenting voice.'
And so the choice must be again,
But the last choice is still the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a hush falls for all acclaim.
And God has taken a flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to bind and hold
Spirit to matter till death come.
'Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stipped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.
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More Poems by Robert Frost
• A Dream Pang
• A Line-Storm Song
• A Minor Bird
• A Passing Glimpse
• A Peck Of Gold
• A Soldier
• A Time To Talk
• Acceptance
• Acquainted With The Night
• After Apple Picking
• Birches
• Bond And Free
• Canis Major
• Design
• Fire And Ice
• Flower-Gathering
• For Once, Then, Something
• Good-Bye, And Keep Cold
• Hannibal
• Home Burial
• Immigrants
• In A Disused Graveyard
• Love And A Question
• Mending Wall
• Mowing
• Not To Keep
• Nothing Gold Can Stay
• Now Close The Windows
• On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations
• Once By The Pacific
• Our Singing Strength
• Out, Out
• Reluctance
• Revelation
• Sitting By A Bush In Broad Sunlight
• Stars
• Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening • Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening • [link url
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Robert Frost The Trial By Existence - Poem Lyrics - Robert Frost - The Trial By Existence

