Haynes Finney
Robert Frost
'Out-Out'

1 The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
2 And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
3 Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
4 And from there those that lifted eyes could count
5 Five mountain ranges one behing the other
6 Under the sunset far into Vermont.
7 And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
8 As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
9 And nothing happened: day was all but done.
10 Call it a day, I wish they might have said
11 To please the boy by giving him the half hour
12 That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
13 His sister stood beside them in her apron
14 To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
15 As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
16 Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -
17 He must have given the hand. However it was,
18 Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
19 The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh.
20 As he swung toward them holding up the hand
21 Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
22 The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
23 Since he was old enough to know, big boy
24 Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -
25 He saw all was spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -
26 The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
27 So. The hand was gone already.
28 The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
29 He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
30 And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
31 No one believed. They listened to his heart.
32 Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
33 No more to build on there. And they, since they
34 Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

Personal Conclusions

8 links:
Robert Frost, 'Out Out', Vermont, I, Lines 13-18, Lines 19-26, Lines 32-34, Personal Conclusions
- posted by Haynes Finney @ 3:26 PM