Here come the line-gang pioneering by. They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread. They string an instrument against the sky. Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken will run as hushed as when they were a thought. But in no hush they string it: they go past With shouts afar to pull the cable taut, To hold it hard until they make it fast, To ease away they have it. With a laugh, An oath of towns that set the wild at naught They bring the telephone and telegraph.
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Authorship:
- by Robert Frost (1874 - 1963), "The line-gang", appears in Mountain Interval, first published 1916 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (1908 - 2012), "The line-gang", 1942, published 1975, from Three Poems of Robert Frost, no. 3, medium voice, piano [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 13
Word count: 107