A Peck of Gold
A Peck of Gold - context Summary
Published 1936, a Further Range
This short poem was published in Robert Frost’s 1936 collection A Further Range. It frames a childhood memory through the recurring image of dust made into "gold," anchored by the explicit place-name "the Golden Gate." In context of Frost’s later work, the poem compresses local color and a wry moral observation into a few tight stanzas, using the Golden Gate reference to suggest both literal dust and a larger, ironic idea of promised or imagined wealth familiar to readers of Frost’s America-facing verse.
Read Complete AnalysesDust 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.’
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