Poem by Robert Lee Frost

To an Ancient

Your claims to immortality were two.
The one you made, the other one you grew.
Sorry to have no name for you but You.

We never knew exactly where to look,
But found one in the delta of a brook,
One in a cavern where you used to cook.

Coming on such an ancient human trace
Seems as expressive of the human race
As meeting someone living, face to face.

We date you by your depth in silt and dust
Your probable brute nature is discussed.
At which point we are totally nonplused.

You made the eolith, you grew the bone,
The second the more peculiarly your own,
And likely to have been enough alone.

You make me ask if I would go to time
Would I gain anything by using rhyme?
Or aren't the bones enough I live to lime?

1. Afterflakes
2. Lost in Heaven
3. One Step Backward Taken
4. Plowmen
5. A Considerable Speck

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