Keep me from going to sleep too soon
\nOr if I go to sleep too soon
\nCome wake me up. Come any hour
\nOf night. Come whistling up the road.
\nStomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
\nMake me get out of bed and come
\nAnd let you in and light a light.
\nTell me the northern lights are on
\nAnd make me look. Or tell me clouds
\nAre doing something to the moon
\nThey never did before, and show me.
\nSee that I see. Talk to me till
\nI’m half as wide awake as you
\nAnd start to dress wondering why
\nI ever went to bed at all.
\nTell me the walking is superb.
\nNot only tell me but persuade me.
\nYou know I\u2019m not too hard persuaded.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2017\/08\/Robert-Francis.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Robert Francis \u00a0August 12, 1901 – July 13, 1987<\/p>\n
Robert Francis was born in Upland, Pennsylvania, and studied at Harvard. Although he taught at workshops and lectured at universities across the United States, he lived for over sixty years in the same house near Amherst, Massachusetts. His poems are often charmingly whimsical, presenting conundrums and mysteries with a light, lyrical touch, as in these lines from \u201cThe Black Hood\u201d: \u201cThus do I praise duplicity and damn it. \/ I hate equivocation and I am it.\u201d Robert Frost, an important influence on the poet, said that Francis was \u201cof all the great neglected poets, the greatest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday, \u00a0August 7, 2017 These early August work days feel like beginnings to me. \u00a0Summer break memories still feel recent. \u00a0Perhaps that\u2019s why I turned to this Robert Francis poem a friend sent me early in July. \u00a0Line by line … Continue reading