To think to know the country and not know <br />The hillside on the day the sun lets go <br />Ten million silver lizards out of snow! <br />As often as I've seen it done before <br />I can't pretend to tell the way it's done. <br />It looks as if some magic of the sun <br />Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor <br />And the light breaking on them made them run. <br />But if I though to stop the wet stampede, <br />And caught one silver lizard by the tail, <br />And put my foot on one without avail, <br />And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed <br />In front of twenty others' wriggling speed,-- <br />In the confusion of them all aglitter, <br />And birds that joined in the excited fun <br />By doubling and redoubling song and twitter, <br />I have no doubt I'd end by holding none. <br /> <br />It takes the moon for this. The sun's a wizard <br />By all I tell; but so's the moon a witch. <br />From the high west she makes a gentle cast <br />And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch, <br />She has her spell on every single lizard. <br />I fancied when I looked at six o'clock <br />The swarm still ran and scuttled just as fast. <br />The moon was waiting for her chill effect. <br />I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock <br />In every lifelike posture of the swarm, <br />Transfixed on mountain slopes almost erect. <br />Across each other and side by side they lay. <br />The spell that so could hold them as they were <br />Was wrought through trees without a breath of storm <br />To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir. <br />One lizard at the end of every ray. <br />The thought of my attempting such a stay!<br /><br />Robert Lee Frost<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-hillside-thaw/
