# New Hampshire — Chapters explained

> Chapter companions for New Hampshire by Robert Frost.

- [New Hampshire](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/new-hampshire.md): The narrator reflects on encounters with people from other states who boast or complain about their regions, contrasting their commercial attitudes with New Hampshire's lack of interest in selling anything. He describes 
- [A Star in a Stone-Boat](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/a-star-in-a-stone-boat.md): The narrator reflects on a fallen star that a laborer mistook for a stone and used to build a wall, contemplating the loss of wonder and the mundane fate of celestial objects. He searches for meaning in stone walls and t
- [The Census-Taker](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-census-taker.md): The narrator, acting as a census-taker, visits a remote, dilapidated house in a desolate mountain area, only to find no one living there. He reflects on the emptiness, decay, and the melancholy of counting souls in a pla
- [The Star-Splitter](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-star-splitter.md): Brad McLaughlin, a failed farmer, burns down his house for insurance money to buy a telescope, fulfilling a lifelong curiosity about humanity's place in the universe. The narrator recounts the town's mixed reactions—mock
- [Maple](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/maple.md): The poem explores the life of a woman named Maple, whose unusual name given by her dying mother shapes her identity and marriage. She and her husband search for the meaning behind her name, ultimately accepting its myste
- [The Axe-Helve](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-axe-helve.md): The narrator recounts an encounter with his neighbor Baptiste, who stops him while he is chopping wood to critique his machine-made axe-helve. Baptiste invites the narrator to his home to select a handcrafted hickory hel
- [The Grindstone](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-grindstone.md): The narrator reflects on a grindstone that has remained stationary despite all efforts to move it, now standing idle under an apple tree in winter. He recalls a summer day when he and an older man, a Father-Time-like fig
- [Paul's Wife](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/paul-s-wife.md): The chapter explores the mystery of Paul's wife, a subject that causes Paul to vanish from any lumber camp when mentioned. Various rumors circulate about why he reacts this way, but Murphy's story reveals that Paul actua
- [Wild Grapes](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/wild-grapes.md): A woman recounts a childhood memory of being lifted into a birch tree by her brother while gathering grapes, an experience that left her clinging desperately and taught her a lasting lesson about holding on with the hear
- [Place for a Third](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/place-for-a-third.md): Eliza, having been married three times to three different men, expresses her dying wish to not be buried with her two previous husbands. Laban, her current husband, initially plans to buy her a separate grave but then co
- [Two Witches](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/two-witches.md): The chapter presents two dramatic monologues about women accused of witchcraft in rural New England. In 'The Witch of Coös,' a mother and son reveal a skeleton in the attic, which the mother claims came up from the cella
- [I: The Witch of Coös](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/i-the-witch-of-co-s.md): A mother and son, two old-believers, recount the story of a skeleton that emerged from the cellar of their farmhouse forty years ago. The mother describes how she confronted the bones, struck off a hand, and with her hus
- [II: The Pauper Witch of Grafton](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/ii-the-pauper-witch-of-grafton.md): The narrator, an elderly woman identified as a witch, disputes the legal settlement of her town residence between Warren and Wentworth. She argues that the record of Arthur Amy having been up for Hog Reeve in Warren is f
- [An Empty Threat](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/an-empty-threat.md): The narrator contemplates staying in a remote, icy wilderness, reflecting on the fur trade and the solitary company of Joe (also called John), a French Indian Eskimo trapper. The poem evokes the ghost of Henry Hudson's f
- [A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey’s Ears and Some Books](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/a-fountain-a-bottle-a-donkey-s-ears-and-some-books.md): The narrator and Old Davis search for a Mormon baptismal font on Kinsman Mountain, but instead find a painted bottle and a formation resembling donkey's ears. Davis then leads the narrator to a deserted house where they 
- [I Will Sing You One-O](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/i-will-sing-you-one-o.md): The narrator lies awake at night, waiting for the tower clock to strike the hour. The snow falls heavily, and two winds clash. The clock finally strikes one, followed by other steeples. The bells speak of celestial bodie
- [Grace Notes](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/grace-notes.md): This chapter presents a collection of lyric poems that explore themes of nature, transience, mortality, and the search for truth and meaning. Poems like 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' and 'Fire and Ice' meditate on impermanence
- [Fragmentary Blue](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/fragmentary-blue.md): The poem questions why we celebrate small glimpses of blue in nature—birds, butterflies, flowers, stones, or eyes—when the sky itself offers a vast, solid blue. It suggests that earth is not yet heaven, though some schol
- [Fire and Ice](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/fire-and-ice.md): A brief meditation on two possible ends of the world—fire and ice—and the speaker's personal reflections on desire and hate as forces of destruction.
- [In a Disused Graveyard](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/in-a-disused-graveyard.md): The poem reflects on a disused graveyard where the living visit to read the gravestones, but the dead no longer come. The verses on the stones predict that today's living visitors will eventually become the dead who stay
- [Dust of Snow](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/dust-of-snow.md): A brief encounter with a crow shaking snow from a hemlock tree alters the speaker's mood, transforming a day of regret into one of redemption.
- [To E. T.](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/to-e-t.md): The narrator reflects on a fallen soldier-poet, E. T., lamenting the words left unsaid between them and the loss felt both during the war and in the years after.
- [Nothing Gold Can Stay](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/nothing-gold-can-stay.md): A brief poem reflecting on the transient nature of beauty and innocence, using imagery of nature's first green, early leaves, Eden, and dawn to illustrate that golden moments are fleeting and cannot endure.
- [The Runaway](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-runaway.md): A speaker and companion observe a young Morgan colt panicking in the falling snow, bolting and returning to a mountain pasture wall. The speaker interprets the colt's fear as a lack of winter-hardiness and criticizes who
- [The Aim Was Song](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-aim-was-song.md): A reflection on how humanity imposes order and intention upon the natural world, transforming the untamed wind into structured song through breath and measure.
- [Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening.md): A traveler pauses in the woods on a snowy evening, captivated by the beauty and stillness of the scene, but is reminded of obligations and the long journey ahead.
- [For Once, Then, Something](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/for-once-then-something.md): The speaker reflects on the taunts of others who accuse him of kneeling at well-curbs without ever seeing deeper than his own reflection. He describes a rare moment when he glimpsed something white and uncertain beyond t
- [Blue-Butterfly Day](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/blue-butterfly-day.md): The poem describes a spring day filled with blue butterflies, which are compared to sky-flakes and flying flowers. They bring a burst of color before the flowers bloom, but eventually they settle and cling to the ground 
- [The Onset](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-onset.md): The speaker reflects on a winter night when snow falls heavily in the dark woods, evoking a sense of impending death and the futility of human effort. Yet he recalls that winter has never permanently defeated the earth; 
- [To Earthward](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/to-earthward.md): The speaker reflects on the evolution of love and sensation from youthful sweetness to a mature craving for pain and earthly roughness, finding that joy now requires the salt of weariness and fault.
- [Good-Bye and Keep Cold](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/good-bye-and-keep-cold.md): The speaker bids farewell to a young orchard as winter approaches, expressing concern over the various threats it faces from animals and weather, and emphasizing the importance of keeping it cold to protect it. He must l
- [Two Look at Two](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/two-look-at-two.md): A couple, halted by a tumbled wall on a mountain path at night, encounters a doe and then a buck who observe them across the wall. The animals pass unscared, and the couple feels a profound sense of connection, as if the
- [Not to Keep](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/not-to-keep.md): A soldier returns home to his wife after being wounded in war. The letter announcing his return arrives, and she is relieved to find him alive and not visibly disfigured. However, he reveals that his wound, though not fa
- [A Brook in the City](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/a-brook-in-the-city.md): The poem reflects on a farm house that now stands incongruously within a modern city street, and mourns the loss of a once-living brook that has been buried underground in a sewer. The speaker recalls intimate interactio
- [The Kitchen Chimney](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-kitchen-chimney.md): The speaker instructs the builder on constructing a kitchen chimney, insisting it must be built from the ground up rather than on a shelf, citing practical concerns about fire safety, structural integrity, and the ominou
- [Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/looking-for-a-sunset-bird-in-winter.md): The speaker recalls a summer bird with an angelic song that sang in a tree, but in the dead of winter, no bird is found—only a single leaf and a piercing star through the cold sky.
- [A Boundless Moment](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/a-boundless-moment.md): The narrator and a companion pause in a March wind, mistaking a distant pale shape in the maples for a spring bloom. After a moment of shared illusion, the narrator admits the truth: it is merely a young beech tree still
- [Evening in a Sugar Orchard](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/evening-in-a-sugar-orchard.md): The narrator, lingering outside a sugar-house on a March night, asks the fireman to stoke the fire so that sparks rise among the maple boughs. The sparks, mingling with the moonlight, form constellations in the trees, wh
- [Gathering Leaves](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/gathering-leaves.md): The speaker describes the futile and repetitive task of gathering leaves, likening the spades to spoons and the bags to balloons. Despite the great noise and effort, the leaves are weightless, colorless, and useless, yet
- [The Valley’s Singing Day](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-valley-s-singing-day.md): The speaker reflects on a quiet morning when a single person's early awakening and footfall stirs the first songbird, which then awakens all the rest, initiating the valley's full chorus of birdsong at dawn. The speaker,
- [Misgiving](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/misgiving.md): The poem reflects on leaves that follow the wind but are overcome by sleep and reluctance, ultimately choosing to stay rather than continue their flight. The speaker hopes that when they are free to seek knowledge beyond
- [A Hillside Thaw](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/a-hillside-thaw.md): The narrator describes the phenomenon of snow melting on a hillside under the sun, creating the illusion of millions of silver lizards racing down the slope. He reflects on the impossibility of capturing or stopping them
- [Plowmen](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/plowmen.md): A brief, ironic poem about plowing snow, suggesting the futility of cultivating barren rock.
- [On a Tree Fallen Across the Road](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/on-a-tree-fallen-across-the-road.md): The poem presents a fallen tree as a temporary obstacle that challenges our sense of self-importance and determination, ultimately asserting that we will not be deterred from our final goal, even if we must venture into 
- [Our Singing Strength](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/our-singing-strength.md): A spring snowstorm blankets the landscape, initially failing to stick but eventually covering the ground. The narrator observes how the storm affects the birds, which flock to the road as the only clear space. Despite th
- [The Lockless Door](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-lockless-door.md): After many years, a knock at the door prompts the speaker to reflect on a door without a lock. Instead of answering, the speaker extinguishes the light, prays, and escapes through a window, only to invite the knocker in 
- [The Need of Being Versed in Country Things](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/the-need-of-being-versed-in-country-things.md): A house has burned down, leaving only the chimney standing like a pistil after petals fall. The barn across the way survives, but no longer serves its purpose. Birds come and go through broken windows, their murmurs remi
- [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters/endnotes.md): This chapter provides endnotes referencing various poems and lines from the book, directing readers to specific works such as 'The Axe-Helve,' 'A Star in a Stone-Boat,' 'The Witch of Coös,' 'The Census-Taker,' 'The Star-

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/new_hampshire_se/chapters