For His Birthday, Robert Frost’s “Prayer In Spring”

The beloved American poet philosopher Robert Frost, four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, had a birthday this week!  Frost was born on March 26, 1874.

Frost is best known for his sentimental depictions of American rural life.  You may remember one of his best known verses:

 “Two roads diverged a wood–and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.”

Today, though–as light flakes of snow fall here in Michigan (again!)–I’d like to share his Prayer In Spring.

Because surely, Spring will come.

PRAYER IN SPRING

OH, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the spring of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify what far ends he will,

But which it only needs that we fulfil.