Good-bye, and Keep Cold

by Robert Frost

　　This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark And cold to an orchard so young in the barkReminds me of all that can happen to harmAn orchard away at the end of the farmAll winter, cut off by a hill from the house.I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browseBy deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.(If certain it wouldn't be idle to callI'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wallAnd warn them away with a stick for a gun.)I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.(We made it secure against being, I hope,By setting it out on a northerly slope.)No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm; But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm."How often already you've had to be told,Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.Dread fifty above more than fifty below."I have to be gone for a season or so.My business awhile is with different trees,Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,And such as is done to their wood with an axe--Maples and birches and tamaracks.I wish I could promise to lie in the nightAnd think of an orchard's arboreal plightWhen slowly (and nobody comes with a light)Its heart sinks lower under the sod.But something has to be left to God. Good-bye, and Keep Cold was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Tue, Feb 20, 2024