Poem by Robert Lee Frost

The Milky Way Is a Cowpath

On wings too stiff to flap
We started to exult
In having left the map
On journey the penult.

But since we got nowhere,
Like small boys we got mad
And let go at the air
With everything we had.

Incorrigible Quidnuncs,
We would see what would come
Of pelting heaven with chunks
Of crude uranium.

At last in self collapse
We owned up to our wife
The Milky Way perhaps
Was woman's way of life.

Our un-outwitted spouse
Replied she had as soon
Believe it was the cow's
That overshot the moon.

The parabolic curve
Of her celestial track,
As any might observe,
Might never bring her back.

The famous foster nurse
Of man and womankind
Had for the universe
Left trivia behind.

And gone right on astray
Through let-down pasture bars
Along the Milky Way
A-foraging on stars.

Perennial as flowers,
To where some allege
This universe of ours
Has got a razor edge.

And if she don't take care
She'll get her gullet cut,
But that is no affair
Of anybody's but” 

The author of these words
Whose lifelong unconcern
Has been with flocks and herds
For what they didn't earn.

1. Once by the Pacific
2. Canis Major
3. Misgiving
4. On Going Unnoticed
5. The Valley’s Singing Day

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