Program Note: Each movement of this piece is inspired by and musically depicts the plot of a poem with the same name by Robert Frost. These poems tend to reflect on the sentiment of individuals as they observe and react to events taking place in nature.
Spring Pools*
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone, And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by the roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods –
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.
Fireflies in the Garden*
Here come real stars to fill up the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies
That, though they never equal stars in size
(And they were never really stars at heart),
Achieve at times a very starlike start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.
Gathering Leaves*
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed, And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight;
And since they grew duller
From the contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?
Dust of Snow*
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
*all poems Robert Frost