Selected Poems

Selected Poems (1923) is a collection of poems by American poet Robert Frost. Dedicated to Edward Thomas, a friend of Frosts and an important English poet who died toward the end of the First World War, Selected Poems is a wonderful sampling of poems from Frosts early collections, including A Boys Will and North of Boston. Known for his plainspoken language and dedication to the images and rhythms of rural New England, Robert Frost is one of Americas most iconic poets, a voice to whom generations of readers have turned in search of beauty, music, and life.

"Mowing" envisions the poets work through the prism of rural labor. "There was never a sound beside the wood but one / And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. / What was it it whispered?" The speaker does not know, but continues his task, hypnotized by its rhythm and simple music. In "After Apple-Picking," as fall gives over to winter, the poet remembers in dreams how the "Magnified apples appear and disappear, / Stem end and blossom end" as he climbs the ladder into the heart of the tree. Both a symbol for life and a metaphor for the poetic act, apple picking leaves the poet "overtired / Of the great harvest [he himself] desired", awaiting sleep as he describes "its coming on," wondering what, if anything, it will bring. "The Road Not Taken," perhaps Frosts most famous poem, is a meditation on fate and free will that follows a traveler in an autumn landscape, unsure of which path to take, but certain he cannot stand still.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Robert Frosts Selected Poems is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.