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Home: Poetry: Robert Frost: The Death of the Hired Man
| THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN |
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a poem by Robert Frost
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- MARY sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
- Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
- She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
- To meet him in the doorway with the news
- And put him on his guard. "Silas is back."
- She pushed him outward with her through the door
- And shut it after her. "Be kind," she said.
- She took the market things from Warren's arms
- And set them on the porch, then drew him down
- To sit beside her on the wooden steps.
- "When was I ever anything but kind to him?
- But I'll not have the fellow back," he said.
- "I told him so last haying, didn't I?
- 'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.'
- What good is he? Who else will harbour him
- At his age for the little he can do?
- What help he is there's no depending on.
- Off he goes always when I need him most.
- 'He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,
- Enough at least to buy tobacco with,
- So he won't have to beg and be beholden.'
- 'All right,' I say, 'I can't afford to pay
- Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.'
- 'Someone else can.' 'Then someone else will have to.'
- I shouldn't mind his bettering himself
- If that was what it was. You can be certain,
- When he begins like that, there's someone at him
- Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,--
- In haying time, when any help is scarce.
- In winter he comes back to us. I'm done."
- "Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," Mary said.
- "I want him to: he'll have to soon or late."
- "He's worn out. He's asleep beside the stove.
- When I came up from Rowe's I found him here,
- Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,
- A miserable sight, and frightening, too--
- You needn't smile--I didn't recognise him--
- I wasn't looking for him--and he's changed.
- Wait till you see."
- "Where did you say he'd been?"
- "He didn't say. I dragged him to the house,
- And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.
- I tried to make him talk about his travels.
- Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off."
- "What did he say? Did he say anything?"
- "But little."
- "Anything? Mary, confess
- He said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me."
- "Warren!"
- "But did he? I just want to know."
- "Of course he did. What would you have him say?
- Surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man
- Some humble way to save his self-respect.
- He added, if you really care to know,
- He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.
- That sounds like something you have heard before?
- Warren, I wish you could have heard the way
- He jumbled everything. I stopped to look
- Two or three times--he made me feel so queer--
- To see if he was talking in his sleep.
- He ran on Harold Wilson--you remember--
- The boy you had in haying four years since.
- He's finished school, and teaching in his college.
- Silas declares you'll have to get him back.
- He says they two will make a team for work:
- Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!
- The way he mixed that in with other things.
- He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
- On education--you know how they fought
- All through July under the blazing sun,
- Silas up on the cart to build the load,
- Harold along beside to pitch it on."
- "Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot."
- "Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
- You wouldn't think they would. How some things linger!
- Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him.
- After so many years he still keeps finding
- Good arguments he sees he might have used.
- I sympathise. I know just how it feels
- To think of the right thing to say too late.
- Harold's associated in his mind with Latin.
- He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying
- He studied Latin like the violin
- Because he liked it--that an argument!
- He said he couldn't make the boy believe
- He could find water with a hazel prong--
- Which showed how much good school had ever done him.
- He wanted to go over that. But most of all
- He thinks if he could have another chance
- To teach him how to build a load of hay----"
- "I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment.
- He bundles every forkful in its place,
- And tags and numbers it for future reference,
- So he can find and easily dislodge it
- In the unloading. Silas does that well.
- He takes it out in bunches like big birds' nests.
- You never see him standing on the hay
- He's trying to lift, straining to lift himself."
- "He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be
- Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
- He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
- Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
- And nothing to look backward to with pride,
- And nothing to look forward to with hope,
- So now and never any different."
- Part of a moon was falling down the west,
- Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
- Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw
- And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
- Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
- Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
- As if she played unheard the tenderness
- That wrought on him beside her in the night.
- "Warren," she said, "he has come home to die:
- You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."
- "Home," he mocked gently.
- "Yes, what else but home?
- It all depends on what you mean by home.
- Of course he's nothing to us, any more
- Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
- Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."
- "Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
- They have to take you in."
- "I should have called it
- Something you somehow haven't to deserve."
- Warren leaned out and took a step or two,
- Picked up a little stick, and brought it back
- And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.
- "Silas has better claim on us you think
- Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles
- As the road winds would bring him to his door.
- Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.
- Why didn't he go there? His brother's rich,
- A somebody--director in the bank."
- "He never told us that."
- "We know it though."
- "I think his brother ought to help, of course.
- I'll see to that if there is need. He ought of right
- To take him in, and might be willing to--
- He may be better than appearances.
- But have some pity on Silas. Do you think
- If he'd had any pride in claiming kin
- Or anything he looked for from his brother,
- He'd keep so still about him all this time?"
- "I wonder what's between them."
- "I can tell you.
- Silas is what he is--we wouldn't mind him--
- But just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.
- He never did a thing so very bad.
- He don't know why he isn't quite as good
- As anyone. He won't be made ashamed
- To please his brother, worthless though he is."
- "I can't think Si ever hurt anyone."
- "No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay
- And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.
- He wouldn't let me put him on the lounge.
- You must go in and see what you can do.
- I made the bed up for him there to-night.
- You'll be surprised at him--how much he's broken.
- His working days are done; I'm sure of it."
- "I'd not be in a hurry to say that."
- "I haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself.
- But, Warren, please remember how it is:
- He's come to help you ditch the meadow.
- He has a plan. You mustn't laugh at him.
- He may not speak of it, and then he may.
- I'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
- Will hit or miss the moon."
- It hit the moon.
- Then there were three there, making a dim row,
- The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.
- Warren returned--too soon, it seemed to her,
- Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.
- "Warren," she questioned.
- "Dead," was all he answered.
| "The Death of the Hired Man" is reprinted from North of Boston. Robert Frost. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1915. |
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