The trees that have it in their pent-up minds To be lost, or deeper in the woods, Are frightened, and will not be good.

Some intelligence in them thinks, As sleep they woo in the dark woods, What a simple thing to act upon this,

If what they say isn’t true It isn’t totally sad, especially If a branch or two or three

Tumbles over under the weight Of the gnashers of summer here; Broken in halves by an early frost.

We are all at once all that remain Of a wilderness untouched, unmade— The trees are clearly tightening their hold, Trees that have it in their pent-up minds

To be lost, or deeper in the woods.

• Robert Frost