Poem of the Day: ‘The Need of Being Versed in Country Things’

We conclude our week of Robert Frost with the final poem in his 1923 collection “New Hampshire.” The poem, “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things,” is as slyly anti-sentimental as anything the man ever wrote. “Slyly,” because it has the some of the accoutrements of sentimental verse about the country life. A farmhouse has burned down, leaving the brick chimney to stick up like “a pistil after the petals go.” The birds fly through the broken windows, and their murmur seems a sigh at the loss and the sadness of things gone away. “One had to be versed in country things” (which, Frost says in his title, we “need” to be) to see the truth: that the phoebes see “nothing sad” and do not weep.The Need of Being Versed in Country Thingsby Robert FrostThe house had gone to bring againTo the midnight sky a sunset glow.Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,Like a pistil after the petals go. The barn opposed across the way,That would have joined the house in flameHad it been the will of the wind, was leftTo bear forsaken the place’s name. No more it opened with all one endFor teams that came by the stony roadTo drum on the floor with scurrying hoofsAnd brush the mow with the summer load. The birds that came to it through the airAt broken windows flew out and in,Their murmur more like the sigh we sighFrom too much dwelling on what has been. Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,And the aged elm, though touched with fire;And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;And the fence post carried a strand of wire.For them there was really nothing sad.But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,One had to be versed in country thingsNot to believe the phoebes wept.___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘The Need of Being Versed in Country Things’

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