Hyla Brook Farm: Why Hyla Brook?

Robert Frost was given a farm in Derry, New Hampshire where he farmed and wrote poetry in the seclusion of his acres for 10 years before sailing to England. On the farm was a brook which became the inspiration for his poem, "Hyla Brook."

Our farm is inspiration for many poetic moments. In a year of drought and flash floods, our "Hyla Brook" never ceases to awake our sense of wonder. The tree frogs, stoneflies, dragonflies, mosses and ferns that live there despite the floods and drought bring us endless pleasure.

Hyla Brook
by Robert Frost, 1906

By June our brook's run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)-
Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat-
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.