The Telephone
“When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
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 windowsill–
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.”
[(from Mountain Interval, 1916)
The Poetry of Robert Frost]
Copyright (c) 1969 Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1967 Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 Robert Frost
Copyright (c) 1964, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1973, 1975 Lesley Frost Ballantine
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