I'm using Frost's "Choose something like a star" for some grammatical
analysis in my UG grammar class.  The version I'm using, the one that
Randall Thompson set to music in his "Frostiana", is given below.  (A
community chorus I sing in is performing it next month, and I got the
text from the score.)

O Star (the fairest one in sight),              	
We grant your loftiness the right 
To some obscurity of cloud-- 
It will not do to say of night, 
Since dark is what brings out your light. 
Some mystery becomes the proud. 
But to the wholly taciturn 
In your reserve is not allowed. 
Say something to us we can learn 
By heart and when alone repeat. 
Say something! And it says, 'I burn.' 
But say with what degree of heat. 
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade. 
Use Language we can comprehend. 
Tell us what elements you blend. 
It gives us strangely little aid, 
But does tell something in the end 
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite, 
Not even stooping from its sphere, 
It asks a little of us here. 
It asks of us a certain height, 
So when at times the mob is swayed 
To carry praise or blame too far, 
We may choose something like a star 
To stay our minds on and be staid. 

In line 7, the phrase " But to the wholly taciturn " shows up with "be"
for "the" in other versions.  (I'll have to check with my score at home
that I did in fact enter it correctly, but I've found the "the" variant
in other versions as well.) 

I can explain either version grammatically, but the "the" version is a
little trickier, involving parallelism with the previous line.  

Specifically, the "the" reading becomes clearer with the following
reordered version:

Some mystery becomes the proud.
But [mystery] is not allowed to the [read: "that which is"] wholly
taciturn in your reserve.

The period after "proud" suggests that the "But" begins a new sentence,
which is what makes the "be" so attractive, but I'm not sure, because of
the "but", that Frost didn't intend an adversative that overrides the
period, thus allowing for the ellipsis of "mystery".

From other textual work I've done, I tend to give credence to the more
difficult reading, and, if I entered it correctly from the musical
score, the "the" version is the one Frost himself would have heard when
it premiered. 

Any thoughts on these lines?

Herb

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