Photo of the Day
Photo of the Day Podcast
Photo of the Day
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Photo of the Day

No. 807

It is 1915.

And the poet, Robert Frost, is writing from his new home, a wooded farmplace in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

A stranger has come from the city and is asking about his trees.

Balsam fir trees stand among others in the forest. Balsam fir trees are found in northeastern US and Canada. [The Couchiching Conservancy photo]

“The city had withdrawn into itself

And left at last the country to the country;

When between whirls of snow not come to lie

And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove

A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,

Yet did in country fashion in that there

He sat and waited till he drew us out

A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.

The Wright Brothers' Christmas tree in their Dayton, Ohio, home, 1900.

He proved to be the city come again

To look for something it had left behind

And could not do without and keep its Christmas.

He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;

My woods—the young fir balsams like a place

Where houses all are churches and have spires.

I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.

Municipal Christmas tree, Independence, Iowa, 1913.

I doubt if I was tempted for a moment

To sell them off their feet to go in cars

And leave the slope behind the house all bare,

Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.

I’d hate to have them know it if I was.

Prisoners gather around the Christmas tree at the Washington D.C. jail, 1926.

Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except

As others hold theirs or refuse for them,

Beyond the time of profitable growth,

The trial by market everything must come to.

Construction workers put up the first Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, 1931.

I dallied so much with the thought of selling.

Then whether from mistaken courtesy

And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether

From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,

“There aren’t enough to be worth while.”

“I could soon tell how many they would cut,

You let me look them over.”

'You could look.

But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.’

Woonsocket, Rhode Island, 1940.

Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close

That lop each other of boughs, but not a few

Quite solitary and having equal boughs

All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,

Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,

With a buyer’s moderation, ‘That would do.’

I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.

Christmas with the Nelson family, from the 1950s television show, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet."

We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,

And came down on the north. He said, ‘A thousand.’

‘A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?’

He felt some need of softening that to me:

‘A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.’

Then I was certain I had never meant

To let him have them. Never show surprise!

President Kennedy hangs stocking at the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach, Florida, 1962.

But thirty dollars seemed so small beside

The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents

(For that was all they figured out apiece),

Three cents so small beside the dollar friends

I should be writing to within the hour

Would pay in cities for good trees like those,

Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools

Could hang enough on to pick off enough.

Macy's flagship store in Manhattan, 1967.

A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!

Worth three cents more to give away than sell,

As may be shown by a simple calculation.

The view from Frost's farmhouse, near Franconia, New Hampshire, which is now a museum.

Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.

I can’t help wishing I could send you one,

In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.”

******************************

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

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Banner image from Vermont Center for Ecostudies.

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Brenda Elthon