A Lover's Quarrel

The epitaph that Frost writes for himself at the end of a poem called "The Lesson for Today": "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

“The return to life can't come about by talking.”

William James, A Pluralistic Universe

Return to life can't come by way of talk,

talk, talk, as if a word could heal a wound—

I've heard enough, I'm going for a walk

out in the watershed where the marsh hawk

weaves its silence over the open ground.

Return to life can't come by way of talk.

But O the heavy change! Go, have your sulk

with Nature. Play your game of lost and found.

As if it held your fear, just turn and walk

away, towing at your back the burning hulk

of all you meant to say. The life's unsound

to which we can't return by way of talk.

Talk with course and way, yes, but we uncaulk

the seams and as in ancient waters drown

in having said too much. I need to walk,

cool down. Everything is turning, is stalk

and stand, until the silence comes unwound.

Return to life can't come by way of talk:

I've heard enough, I'm going for a walk—

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