A Boy's Will [Hardcover]

Robert Frost (Author), 1stWorld Publishing (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2006

ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land, Or highway where the slow wheel ours the sand. I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew-Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 108 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society (February 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421806673
• ISBN-13: 978-1421806679
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,002,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the world found Frost, October 26, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Boy's Will (Paperback)

Robert Frost came into public view with "A Boy's Will," his first short collection of poetry. While Frost's "voice" is a bit unformed in these poems, the rich ponderings of nature and love are never stronger, full of "sun-saturated meadows," November-loving girls, and pearly streams.

"I should not be withheld but that some day/Into their vastness I should steal away," Frost announces in his first poem. He follows up this statement with everything from eerie story-poems ("Love and a Question") to exultant ("A Prayer in Spring") to melancholy meditations on nature's beauty, love, and broken hearts.

Poets take awhile to reach their peak, and Frost was still starting out in "A Boy's Will." That said, it's astounding how good he was even in his first volume of poetry (though at times the rhymes are a little too simple, and the subjects don't vary much). Most striking is Frost's passion -- his enthusiasm, sorrow and thoughts seem to spill off the page.

What really makes Frost's poetry come alive is his descriptions of nature -- one poem is entirely devoted to a moonlit search for a brook, since the well has gone dry. Sylvan god Pan even makes a cameo in one poem, an enjoyable little bit about Pan surveying an uninhabited forest. However, he ventures out of the woods from time to time, such as the stirring historical poem "In Equal Sacrifice," about Douglas carrying Robert the Bruce's heart to the Holy Land.

"A Boy's Will" is a stirring -- though very short -- collection of Robert Frost's poetry, and has the prestige of introducing this poet to the world. While Frost's poetry still had some growing pains, its beauty and richness make up for any flaws.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Into My Own, May 1, 2010

By 

Qing Zhang "Billy Parheim" (Oberlin, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Boy's Will (Hardcover)

Frost wrote this first collection of poems when he was forty, and it was published to rather diminutive attention in England, where Frost was staying. There were not many favorable American reviews, except for Ezra Pound's, who, like Emerson noticing Whitman, saw something of the poet in Frost. I have little else to add to Solinas's review except that these poems are not entitled A Man's Will, but A Boy's Will. This, I think, is Frost's aknowledgment of his immaturity, his ambition, and the continued wonder and fascination of his poetic eye, which, like the Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey, mingles the awe of childhood with the draughts of age.