Spring Pools These pools that, though in forests, still reflect The total sky almost without defect, And like the sky, are painted blue and gold, And, in the sky, just after it is told, By a thin layer of clouds that share the sun.

I cannot bear that only unwillingly Might our earth put on blowzy summer, but time Is all, and this is how it will quietly transform, To place no palm against the air’s warm face, As full of light and shadow as the day— And I will leave it there, returning from the sun.

Can I return and drag these beads of thought Across my mind, and lose them all and yet, Find again a single hope to hope too, and be As good as once I did then, and deserve no more, And sense a pair and a pair turned our way to share, With everything I found, to utter words of all wisdom?

• Robert Frost