Robert Frost says in a piece of homely doggerel that he has hoped wisdom could be not only Attic but Laconic, Boeotian even - "at least not systematic"; but how systematically Frostian the worst of his later poems are! His good poems are the best refutation of, the most damning comment on, his bad: his Complete Poems have the air of being able to educate any faithful reader into tearing out a third of the pages, reading a third, and practically wearing out the rest.
"No Other Book: Selected Essays". Book by Randall Jarrell. Chapter: "To the Laodiceans", p. 21, 1999.
