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Robert Frost - A Girl's Garden

A NEIGHBOR of mine in the village
  Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
  A childlike thing.

One day she asked her father
  To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
  And he said, "Why not?"

In casting about for a corner
  He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
  And he said, "Just it."

And he said, "That ought to make you
  An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
  On your slim-jim arm."

It was not enough of a garden,
  Her father said, to plough;
So she had to work it all by hand,
  But she don't mind now.

She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
  Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
  Her not-nice load.

And hid from anyone passing.
  And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
  Of all things but weed.

A hill each of potatoes,
  Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
  And even fruit trees

And yes, she has long mistrusted
  That a cider apple tree
In bearing there to-day is hers,
  Or at least may be.

Her crop was a miscellany
  When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
  A great deal of none.

Now when she sees in the village
  How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
  She says, "I know!

It's as when I was a farmer--"
  Oh, never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
  To the same person twice.

Added: on March 31st, 2006 at 12:54 PM | Viewed: 15568 times | Comments and analysis of A Girl's Garden by Robert Frost Comments (15)


A Girl's Garden - Comments and Information

Poet: Robert Frost
Poem: 21. A Girl's Garden
Volume: Mountain Interval
Year: Published/Written in 1916
Poem of the Day: Apr 14 2004

Comment 15 of 15, added on April 10th, 2007 at 7:18 PM.

This poem is awesome I really enjoyed it It is the best one I have ever read I know it is about a girl that takes care of her garden,does it her own way, and doesn't listen to her father. It is so good im gonna use it to read as my poem for the class project

Candy from United States
Comment 14 of 15, added on April 11th, 2006 at 8:16 PM.

the poem tells of a girl's experience and what she learns from it.

The father doesn't tell her to plow it he says, there's not enough land to plow, but just enough for her to get stronger and become independent. At first she's eager, doesn't mind having to work it by hand, but then she's always leaving it in the middle, and goin of to do something more fun.

but, she doesn't stick with one thing, its all over the place 'She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weed.' she plants practically everything except weeds, even a fruit tree.

Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.

she's got a bunch of plants, but no actual 'fruit'

then, from what i see, 'oh, never by way of advice' is sarcastic, she enjoys telling the story, because she has learned from it, to stick with something and do one thing well, rather than do it haphazardly

although she 'messed up', she still learns, the lesson still continues, which would be the apple tree

Serena from United States
Comment 13 of 15, added on March 31st, 2006 at 12:54 PM.

The girl in this poem did not take advice because she thought she could do the garden her own way. The girl's character is flawed because she is untruthful about how her garden grew and she doesn't take care of things that need to be done (the wheelbarrow). The poem is told in third person.

Butner Stem Elementary 4th grade from United States

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