A Time to Talk
When a friend calls to me from the roadAnd slows his horse to a meaning walk,I don't stand still and look aroundOn 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: I go up to the stone wallFor a friendly visit.
Words in this poem
- plod v. i.
- To travel slowly but steadily; to trudge. [Gf. Gael. plod a clod, a pool; also, to strike or pelt with a clod or clods.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Time to Talk is in the public domain. This text is taken from Mountain Interval, Project Gutenberg ebook #29345; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Frost, A Time to Talk, in Mountain Interval (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29345, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-mountain-interval/a-time-to-talk.html, id L02651.
Form and metre
A Time to Talk is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -AB--ABCC- road · walkA · aroundB · hoed · it · talkA · groundB · tallC · wallC · visit
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When a friend calls to me from the road | 9 | ········· |
| And slows his horse to a meaning walk, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| I don't stand still and look around | 8 | ········ |
| On all the hills I haven't hoed, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And shout from where I am, What is it? | 9 | ········· |
| No, not as there is a time to talk. | 9 | ········· |
| I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Blade-end up and five feet tall, | 7 | ······· |
| And plod: I go up to the stone wall | 9 | ········· |
| For a friendly visit. | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.