A Star in a Stone-Boat Robert Frost

For Lincoln MacVeagh

Never tell me that not one star of all
That slip from heaven at night and softly fall
Has been picked up with stones to build a wall

Some laborer found one faded and stone-cold
And saving that its weight suggested gold
And tugged it from his first too certain hold

He noticed nothing in it to remark
He was not used to handling stars thrown dark
And lifeless from an interrupted arc

He did not recognize in that smooth coal
The one thing palpable besides the soul
To penetrate the air in which we roll

He did not see how like a flying thing
It brooded ant eggs, and had one large wing
One not so large for flying in a ring

And a long Bird of Paradise’s tail
(Though these when not in use to fly and trail
It drew back in its body like a snail);