An Encounter by Robert Frost — Read

Once on the kind of day called "weather breeder,"

When the heat slowly hazes and the sun / By its own power seems to be undone, / I was half boring through, half climbing through / A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar / And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated, / And sorry I ever left the road I knew, / I paused and rested on a sort of hook / That had me by the coat as good as seated, / And since there was no other way to look, / Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue, / Stood over me a resurrected tree, / A tree that had been down and raised again––

A barkless spectre. He had halted too, / As if for fear of treading upon me.

I saw the strange position of his hands––

Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands / Of wire with something in it from men to men.

"You here? " I said. "Where aren't you nowadays / And what's the news you carry––if you know?

And tell me where you're off for––Montreal?

Me? I'm not off for anywhere at all.

Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways / Half looking for the orchid Calypso. "