THE GIFT OUTRIGHT

I watched as the old man, Robert Frost, stepped to the podium during the inauguration of President Kennedy in 1961. Our teacher had turned on the black and white television, and pulled up the rabbit ears, so we could view the broadcast on that memorable day.

While Mr. Frost had planned to read a poem which he had written for the ceremony, he was almost blinded by the noonday sun, and looking up from his manuscript, he instead quoted “The Gift Outright,” another of his poems. Such a poignant memory from more innocent times.

The Gift Outright

BY ROBERT FROST

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.