The Gift Outright

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by Robert Frost




Frost tried to read a poem he wrote for Kennedy's Inauguration. When the sun
and wind stopped him, he recited "The Gift Outright" from memory. Three cheers
for the wind and the sun!



The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

To read this poem in Frost's own hand...
Please click here to go to a page I created for more of Frost’s poems.

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