Robert Frost, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet  – American Minute with Bill Federer

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

-Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” 1951.

Robert Lee Frost began publishing poems in his high school bulletin.

In 1892, he graduated co-valedictorian with the woman he was to marry, Elinor Miriam White.

He briefly attended Dartmouth, then Harvard, but left to go back to teaching.

When his grandfather, William Prescott Frost, died in 1901, Robert inherited the family farm along with a significant annuity, writing poetry on the side.

He taught at New Hampshire’s Pinkerton Academy, 1906-1911, and New Hampshire Normal School, now Plymouth State University.

Robert Frost was a contemporary of notable poets and writers, some of whom, because of World Wars One, wrote in a reflective, pensive tone:

  • T.S. Eliot,
  • James Joyce,
  • William Butler Yeats,
  • Wallace Stevens, and
  • Ernest Hemingway.

In 1912, Frost moved to England where he met many literary minds and “war poets.”

Britain entered World War One on August 4, 1914, and in the next four year saw over a million casualties.

While in England, Frost met poets who wrote in a style called “imagism,” most notably:

  • T.E. Hulme;
  • Ezra Pound — a controversial expatriate; and
  • Edward Thomas, who inspired Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”

T.E. Hulme wrote in “The Embankment”:

“(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold, bitter night.)

… That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy (poetry).

Oh, God, make small

The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,

That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.”

In 1909, though eccentric and unorthodox, Ezra Pound wrote an old-English style poem titled Ballad of the Goodly Fere (Friend), as an account of disciple Simon Zelotes witnessing the crucifixion.

Angry at modern church leaders for portraying Jesus as weak, Ezra Pound responded by describing Jesus as “a man o’ men was he”:

“Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere (friend) o’ all

For the priests and the gallows tree?

Aye lover he was of brawny men,

O’ ships and the open sea.

When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man

His smile was good to see,

‘First let these go!’ quo’ our Goodly Fere,

‘Or I’ll see ye damned,’ says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears

And the scorn of his laugh rang free,

‘Why took ye not me when I walked about

Alone in the town?’ says he.

Oh we drank his ‘Hale’ in the good red wine

When we last made company,

No capon (neutered) priest was the Goodly Fere

But a man o’ men was he.

I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men

Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,

That they took the high and holy house

For their pawn and treasury.

They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think

Though they write it cunningly;

No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere

But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere

They are fools to the last degree.

‘I’ll go to the feast,’ quo’ our Goodly Fere,

‘Though I go to the gallows tree.’

‘Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,

And wake the dead,’ says he,

‘Ye shall see one thing to master all:

‘Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.’

A son of God was the Goodly Fere

That bade us his brothers be.

I ha’ seen him cow (awe) a thousand men.

I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails

And the blood gushed hot and free,

The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue

But never a cry cried he.

I ha’ seen him cow (awe) a thousand men

On the hills o’ Galilee,

They whined as he walked out calm between,

Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea,

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging

With the winds unleashed and free,

Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret

Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,

A mate of the wind and sea,

If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere

They are fools eternally.

I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb

Sin’ (Since) they nailed him to the tree.”

Of note is that the last line of the poem referred to Jesus’ resurrection. Luke 24:40 “When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, ‘Have you any food here?’ So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.”

Robert Frost returned to America in 1915, the year after World War I started.

He taught at Amherst College from 1916 to 1920, but resigned because he thought the president, Alexander Meiklejohn, was too morally permissive.

He was on staff at the University of Michigan, where he arranged a poet lecture series with Carl Sandburg, Louis Untermeyer, and Amy Lowell.

In 1923, after Meiklejohn was dismissed, Frost rejoined the teaching staff at Amherst College.

Having several children die prematurely, Frost and his wife struggled with depression.

In 1928, they traveled to Europe where they met poet T.S. Eliot.

T.S. Eliot had gained international fame from his 1922 poem “The Waste Land,” expressing the disillusionment after World War One.

He was put off reading Bertrand Russell’s agnostic essay “A Free Man’s Worship,” which purported that man must worship man.

Considering Russell’s work shallow, in response, Eliot shook the literary world by renewing his Christian faith, being confirmed in the Church of England in 1927.

In 1930, Eliot wrote the poem “Ash Wednesday,” which commemorates the introspective season of Lent, that culminates with the celebration of Christ’s resurrection:

“And pray to God to have mercy upon us

And pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again …

May the judgement not be too heavy upon us …

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death

Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”

Eliot believed that society should be ruled, not by the church, but by Christian principles.

In 1939, he wrote in The Idea of a Christian Society, that secular “rational” civilization would inevitably crumble from within:

“The experiment will fail … but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the world from suicide.”

In 1943, T.S. Eliot wrote “Four Quartets,” which alluded to the Holy Spirit descending on the Day of Pentecost:

“The dove descending breaks the air

With flame of incandescent terror

Of which the tongues declare

The one discharge from sin and error.

The only hope, or else despair

Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—

To be redeemed from fire by fire.”

Greatly respected by his contemporaries, Robert Frost won four Pulitzer prizes and was awarded over 40 honorary degrees.

In the poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Robert Frost reflected on the world’s beginning:

“Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.”

In the poem “Fire and Ice,” Frost reflected on the world’s end:

“Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.”

Robert Frost wrote in “A Prayer in Spring”:

“For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.”

In 1950, the U.S. Senate honored Robert Frost with a resolution.

In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower invited him to the White House.

Robert Frost was a consultant to the Library of Congress, and, in 1960, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

In 1961, Robert Frost read a poem at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.

In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Frost wrote:

“Whose woods these are I think I know

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He give his harness bell a shake

To ask if there is some mistake,

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

In 1961, the Vermont’s State Legislature named Robert Frost “Poet laureate of Vermont.”

Frost commented on the Father of the Country:

“I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few men in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.”

Frost wrote:

“Freedom lies in being bold.”

Robert Frost died January 29, 1963.

In a 1956 interview on station WQED, Pittsburgh, Robert Frost stated:

“Ultimately, this is what you go before God for: You’ve had bad luck and good luck and all you really want in the end is mercy.”

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