A Frost Sequence

Song Cycle by Stephanie Martin (b. 1962)

1. Nothing gold can stay  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. The Road Not Taken  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , "Der nicht gegangene Weg", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada and the U.S., but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Stopping by woods on a snowy evening  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To [watch]1 his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farm-house near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Frost (1874 - 1963), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", written 1922, appears in New Hampshire, first published 1923

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , "Halten am Walde im Abendschnee", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

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Note: this poem became public-domain on Jan 1, 2019.

1 Barber: "see"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 293