| Robert Frost (1874–1963). Miscellaneous Poems to 1920. 1920. |
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| 14. The Valley’s Singing Day |
| | | (From Harper’s Magazine, December 1920.) |
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| THE SOUND of the closing outside door was all. | |
| You made no sound in the grass with your footfall, | |
| As far as you went from the door, which was not far; | |
| But you had awakened under the morning star | |
| The first song-bird that awakened all the rest. | 5 |
| He could have slept but a moment more at best. | |
| Already determined dawn began to lay | |
| In place across a cloud the slender ray | |
| For prying beneath and forcing the lids of sight, | |
| And loosing the pent-up music of over-night. | 10 |
| But dawn was not to begin their “pearly-pearly” | |
| (By which they mean the rain is pearls so early, | |
| Before it changes to diamonds in the sun), | |
| Neither was song that day to be self-begun. | |
| You had begun it, and if there needed proof— | 15 |
| I was asleep still under the dripping roof, | |
| My window curtain hung over the sill to wet; | |
| But I should awake to confirm your story yet; | |
| I should be willing to say and help you say | |
| That once you had opened the valley’s singing day. | 20 |
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