A Time to Talk
By Robert Frost (1916)
Single stanza, loose iambic pentameter
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade end up and five feet tall,
And plod up to the stone wall
For a visit.
Friendship is a field that must be worked,
Not a fence that keeps itself.