The Common Fate

Robert Frost

Dust always blowing about the town
Except when sea-fog laid it down.
And I was one of the children told
Some of the blowing dust was gold.

All the dust the wind blew high
Appeared like gold in the sunset sky.
But I was one of the children told
Some of the dust was really gold.

Such was life in the Golden Gate:
Gold dusted all we drank and ate.
And I was one of the children told
We all must eat our peck of gold.

Robert Frost was an American poet and four-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. He died in 1963.
Originally published:
July 1, 1927

Featured

10 Ways Ms., Sassy, and Jezebel Changed Your Life!

How contradiction drove fifty years of feminist media
Maggie Doherty

How Emily Wilson Reimagined Homer

Her boldly innovative translation of the Iliad is an epic for our time
Emily Greenwood

In the Shallows

Why do public intellectuals condescend to their readers?
Becca Rothfeld

Newsletter

Sign up for The Yale Review newsletter and keep up with news, events, and more.