NCERT Book Class 12 English (Flamingo) Poetry 4 A Roadside Stand

25KM

4 A Roadside Stand
About the poet
Robert Frost (1874-1963) is a highly acclaimed
American poet of the twentieth century. Robert Frost
wrote about characters, people and landscapes. His
poems are concerned with human tragedies and fears,
his reaction to the complexities of life and his ultimate
acceptance of his burdens. Stopping by the Woods on a
Snowy Evening, Birches, Mending walls are a few of
his well-known poems. In the poem A Roadside Stand,
Frost presents the lives of poor deprived people
with pitiless clarity and with the deepest sympathy
and humanity.

Before you read
Have you ever stopped at a roadside stand? What have you
observed there?

The little old house was out with a little new shed
In front at the edge of the road where the traffic sped,
A roadside stand that too pathetically pled,
It would not be fair to say for a dole of bread,
But for some of the money, the cash, whose flow supports
The flower of cities from sinking and withering faint.
The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead,
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
At having the landscape marred with the artless paint
Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong
Offered for sale wild berries in wooden quarts,
Or crook-necked golden squash with silver warts,
Or beauty rest in a beautiful mountain scene,
You have the money, but if you want to be mean,
Why keep your money (this crossly) and go along.
The hurt to the scenery wouldn’t be my complaint

A Roadside Stand/97