A Cabin in the Clearing Robert Frost

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.