Robert Frost - A Cabin in the Clearing lyrics

A Cabin in the Clearing --for Alfred Edwards MIST I don't believe the sleepers in this house Know where they are. SMOKE They've been here long enough To push the woods back from around the house And part them in the middle with a path. MIST And still I doubt if they know where they are. And I begin to fear they never will. All they maintain the path for is the comfort Of visiting with the equally bewildered. Nearer in plight their neighbors are than distance. SMOKE I am the guardian wraith of starlit smoke That leans out this and that way from their chimney. I will not have their happiness despaired of. MIST No one - not I - would give them up for lost Simply because they don't know where they are. I am the damper counterpart of smoke That gives off from a garden ground at night But lifts no higher than a garden grows. I cotton to their landscape. That's who I am. I am no further from their fate than you are. SMOKE They must by now have learned the native tongue. Why don't they ask the Red Man where they are? MIST They often do, and none the wiser for it. So do they also ask philosophers Who come to look in on them from the pulpit. They will ask anyone there is to ask - In the fond faith accumulated fact Will of itself take fire and light the world up. Learning has been a part of their religion. SMOKE If the day ever comes when they know who They are, they may know better where they are. But who they are is too much to believe - Either for them or the onlooking world.. They are too sudden to be credible. MIST Listen, they murmur talking in the dark On what should be their daylong theme continued. Putting the lamp out has not put their thought out. Let us pretend the dewdrops from the eaves Are you and I eavesdropping on their unrest - A mist and smoke eavesdropping on a haze - And see if we can tell the ba** from the soprano. Than smoke and mist who better could appraise The kindred spirit of an inner haze.