The Flower Boat

The fisherman's swapping a yarn for a yarn
Under the hand of the village barber,
And her in the angle of house and barn
His deep-sea dory has found a harbor.

At anchor she rides the sunny sod
As full to the gunnel of flowers growing
As ever she turned her home with cod
From George's bank when winds were blowing.

And I judge from that elysian freight
That all they ask is rougher weather,
And dory and master will sail by fate
To seek the Happy Isles together.

by Robert Frost

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Comments (3)

catching a glimpse of what might be
.....sounds like so much fun...beautifully penned
Frost here uses a traditional ballad form, less to tell a story than to indulge a fantasy sparked by the sight of a fisherman's boat filled with flowers. The conceit in the second verse, of the dory riding the 'sunny sod' instead of the sea and the fish substituted by flowers, is most poetic, as is the lighthearted thought that the two might still happily sail off together to an afterlife.