1 Robert Frost ENGL 202 Poetry Manuscript Formatting • 12-point Times New Roman typeface • Place pertinent author and course information in the upper left corner • Put page numbers in the upper right corner • Place the title above the poem. There is no need to center the poem unless that is the effect you desire. • Begin new poems on new pages. • If the poem spills onto a new page, identify whether there is a stanza break or a stanza continuance. • Whereas prose is always double-spaced, poetry often is not. The look of the “poem-as-object” is important to its effect; many poets strive to produce manuscript pages that look clean, compact, and tidy. Single-spacing achieves this better. • Provide spacing as necessary between stanzas. Professor Pound Spring 2015 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know.    His house is in the village though;    He will not see me stopping here    To watch his woods fill up with snow.    My little horse must think it queer    To stop without a farmhouse near    Between the woods and frozen lake    The darkest evening of the year.    He gives his harness bells a shake    To ask if there is some mistake.    The only other sound’s the sweep    Of easy wind and downy flake.    The woods are lovely, dark and deep,    But I have promises to keep,    And miles to go before I sleep,    And miles to go before I sleep. Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. Birches When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows— Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again ...

1. 1
Robert Frost
ENGL 202
Poetry Manuscript Formatting
• 12-point Times New Roman typeface
• Place pertinent author and course information in the upper left
corner
• Put page numbers in the upper right corner
• Place the title above the poem. There is no need to center the
poem unless that is the effect you desire.
• Begin new poems on new pages.
• If the poem spills onto a new page, identify whether there is a
stanza break or a stanza continuance.
• Whereas prose is always double-spaced, poetry often is not.
The look of the “poem-as-object” is important to its effect;
many poets strive to produce manuscript pages that look clean,
compact, and tidy. Single-spacing achieves this better.
• Provide spacing as necessary between stanzas.
Professor Pound
Spring 2015
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake

2. The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

3. As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood

4. [stanza continued]
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Queen-Anne’s Lace
Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being

5. stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.
1
Herman Melville
Fiction/Nonfiction Manuscript Formatting
• 12-point Times New Roman typeface
• Double-spaced lines
• Place pertinent author information in the upper left corner
• Put page numbers in the upper right corner
• Center the title approximately 1/3 of the way down the page
ENGL 202
Professor Hawthorne
Spring 2015
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long
precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing
particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a

6. little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of
driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever
I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a
damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up
the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my
hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong
moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into
the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I
account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my
substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato
throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There
is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men
in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same
feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round
by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds
it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward.
Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is
washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours
previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-
gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go
from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by
Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent
sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands
of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the
spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the
bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as
if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all
landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to
counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this?
Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water,
and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content
them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the

7. shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must
get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling
in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all,
they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north,
east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the
magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those
ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of
lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries
you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the
stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men
be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs,
set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if
water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in
the great American desert, try