A Cliff Dwelling in  General   

There sandy seems the golden sky
And golden seems the sandy plain.
No habitation meets the eye
Unless in the horizon rim,
Some halfway up the limestone wall,
That spot of black is not a stain
Or shadow, but a cavern hole,
Where someone used to climb and crawl
To rest from his besetting fears.
I see the callus on his soul
The disappearing last of him
And of his race starvation slim,
Oh years ago -- ten thousand years.

By Robert Frost

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Other poems by Robert Frost:

• A Boundless Moment
• A Brook in the City
• A Cliff Dwelling
• A Dream Pang
• A Hillside Thaw
• A Hundred Collars
• A Late Walk
• A Line-Storm Song
• A Minor Bird
• A Patch of Old Snow
• A Peck of Gold
• A Prayer in Spring
• A Question
• A Servant to Servants
• A Soldier
• A Star in a Stoneboat
• A Time to Talk
• A Winter Eden
• Acceptance
• Acquainted With the Night
• After Apple-Picking
• An Empty Threat
• An Encounter
• Asking For Roses
• Bereft
• Birches
• Blue-Butterfly Day
• Blueberries
• Bond and Free
• Brown’s Descent
• But Outer Space
• Canis Major
• Christmas Trees
• Come In
• Desert Places
• Design
• Devotion
• Dust in the Eyes
• Dust of Snow
• Evening in a Sugar Orchard
• Fire and Ice
• Fireflies in the Garden
• Flower-Gathering
• For Once, Then, Something
• Fragmentary Blue
• Gathering Leaves
• Ghost House
• Going for Water
• Good Hours
• Good-by and Keep Cold
• Hannibal
• Home Burial
• Hyla Brook
• I Will Sing You One-O
• I. The Witch of Coös
• II. The Pauper Witch of Grafton
• In a Disused Graveyard
• In a Vale
• In the Home Stretch
• Into My Own
• Leaves Compared With Flowers
• Locked Out
• Lodged
• Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter
• Love and a Question
• Maple
• Meeting and Passing
• Mending Wall
• Misgiving
• Mowing
• My Butterfly
• My November Guest
• Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
• New Hampshire
• Not To Keep
• Nothing Gold Can Stay
• Now Close the Windows
• October
• On Going Unnoticed
• On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations
• Once By The Pacific
• One Step Backward Taken
• Our Singing Strength
• Pan with Us
• Pea Brush
• Place for a Third
• Plowmen
• Provide, Provide
• Putting in the Seed
• Range-Finding
• Reluctance
• Revelation
• Riders
• Rose Pogonias
• Sand Dunes
• Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight
• Snow
• Spring Pools
• Stars
• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
• Storm Fear
• The Aim was Song
• The Armful
• The Ax-Helve
• The Bear
• The Birthplace
• The Black Cottage
• The Bonfire
• The Census-Taker
• The Cocoon
• The Code
• The Cow In Apple-Time
• The Death of the Hired Man
• The Door in the Dark
• The Egg and the Machine
• The Exposed Nest
• The Fear
• The Flood
• The Flower Boat
• The Freedom of the Moon
• The Generations of Men
• The Gum-Gatherer
• The Investment
• The Kitchen Chimney
• The Last Mowing
• The Last Word of a Blue Bird
• The Line-Gang
• The Lockless Door
• The Mountain
• The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
• The Onset
• The Oven Bird
• The Pasture
• The Peaceful Shepherd
• The Road Not Taken
• The Rose Family
• The Runaway
• The Self-Seeker
• The Silken Tent
• The Soldier
• The Sound of the Trees
• The Span Of Life
• The Star-Splitter
• The Telephone
• The Thatch
• The Times Table
• The Trial by Existence
• The Tuft of Flowers
• The Vanishing Red
• The Vantage Point
• The Wood-Pile
• They Were Welcome To Their Belief
• To E.T.
• To Earthward
• To the Thawing Wind
• Tree At My Window
• Two Look at Two
• Two Tramps In Mud Time
• What Fifty Said
• Wild Grapes
• Wind and Window Flower