A Boy’s Will is the first book of poems by Frost, published in 1913 when he was in his late thirties, and deals with the ideas of development and maturity. Most of the poems had never been published and were written over the preceding two decades.  The book is admittedly partly autobiographical: Frost wrote that the poems were “pretty near being the story of five years” of his life.  The title comes from a line in “My Lost Youth” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will/And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts” and reflects on Frost’s wayward early years. The first poem ,“Into My Own”, marks a turning away from people and the later “Tuft of Flowers” marks a return. The pastoral settings paint a distinctively New England landscape and give rise to questions of the relationship of man and nature.  The book is dedicated to his wife Elinor, who helped choose the poems and their sequencing in the book. First printed in London, his friend Ezra Pound wrote in his review in the New Freeman that “The man has the good sense to speak naturally and to paint the thing, the thing as he sees it. And to do this is a very different matter from gunning about for the circumplectious polysyllable”.  Pound introduced him to W. B. Yeats, who considered it “the best poetry written in America in a longtime”.  The book was well-received, with critics praising the directness, simplicity, and Frost’s “ear for silences”. 

Play sample: 

Download a PDF datasheet