Mrs. Oberthier's Site - Poetry of Robert Frost

Robert Frost was one of the finest of rural New England's 20th century pastoral poets. Frost published his first books in Great Britain in the 1910s, but he soon became the most read and constantly anthologized poet in his own country. Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26, 1874. His father, a journalist and local politician, was diagnosed as consumptive in 1876. He died in 1885, when Frost was eleven years old, leaving family with only $8 after expenses are paid. His mother moved the family to Lawrence, Mass to live with Frost's paternal grandparents.

In 1886, his mother moved the family to Salem Depot, New Hampshire, where she began (resumed) her teaching career. She taught the fifth to eighth grades. Frost graduated from

In 1894 the New York Independent published Frost's poem "My Butterfly". He also had five poems privately printed. In 1895, he married a former schoolmate, Elinor White; they had six children. Frost worked as a teacher and continued to write and publish his poems in magazines. From 1897 to 1899 Frost studied at Harvard, but left without receiving a degree. He moved to Derry, New Hampshire, working there as a cobbler, farmer, and teacher at Pinkerton Academy and at the state normal school in Plymouth.

In 1912, Frost sold his farm and took his wife and four young children to England. There he published his first collection of poems, A Boy's Will (1913) followed by North Boston (1914), which gained international reputation. The collection contains some of Frost's best-known poems: "Mending Wall," "The Death of the Hired Man," "Home Burial," "After Apple-Picking," and "The Wood-Pile."

After returning to the US in 1915, with his family, Frost bought a farm near Franconia, New Hampshire. He taught later at Amherst College (1916-38) and Michigan universities. In 1916 Frost was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In the same year appeared his third collection of verse, Mountain Interval, which contained such poems as "The Road Not Taken," "Birches," and "The Hill Wife." Frost's images - woods, stars, houses, brooks, - are usually taken from everyday life. With his down-to-earth approach to his subjects, readers found it easy to follow the poet into deeper truths, without being burdened with pedantry.

Frost purchased a farm in South Shaftsbury, Vermont, near Middlebury College in 1920. In 1938, his wife died and he lost four of his children. Frost also suffered from depression and continual self-doubt. After the death of his wife, Frost became attracted to his secretary and adviser, Kay Morrison. He composed of his finest love poems, "A Witness Tree" for her.

In 1961, Frost participated in the inauguration of President John Kennedy by reciting two of his poems. In 1962, he traveled in the Soviet Union as a member of a goodwill group. Over the years he received a remarkable number of literary and academic honors, including receiving a Pulitzer Prize award four times. At the time of his death on January 29, 1963, Frost was regarded as a kind of unofficial poet laureate of the United States.

A Girl's Garden
A Witness Tree
After Apple-Picking
Birches
Dust of Snow
Fire and Ice
For Once, Then Something
God's Garden
Good-bye, and Keep Cold
Home Burial
Mending Wall
Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Once By The Pacific
Putting in the Seed
Range-Finding
Spring Pools
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
The Death of the Hired Man
The Hill Wife
The Oven Bird
The Pasture
The Road Not Taken
The Rose Family
The Sound Of The Trees
The Star-Splitter
The Tuft of Flowers
The Wood-Pile
To E. T.

God's Garden

God made a beauteous garden
With lovely flowers strown,
But one straight, narrow pathway
That was not overgrown.
And to this beauteous garden
He brought mankind to live,
And said: "To you, my children,
These lovely flowers I give.
Prune ye my vines and fig trees,
With care my flowerets tend,
But keep the pathway open
Your home is at the end."

Then came another master,
Who did not love mankind,
And planted on the pathway
Gold flowers for them to find.
And mankind saw the bright flowers,
That, glitt'ring in the sun,
Quite hid the thorns of av'rice
That poison blood and bone;
And far off many wandered,
And when life's night came on,
They still were seeking gold flowers,
Lost, helpless and alone.

O, cease to heed the glamour
That blinds your foolish eyes,
Look upward to the glitter
Of stars in God's clear skies.
Their ways are pure and harmless
And will not lead astray,
Bid aid your erring footsteps
To keep the narrow way.
And when the sun shines brightly
Tend flowers that God has given
And keep the pathway open
That leads you on to heaven.

The Road Not Taken

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.

Quotes

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
--Robert Frost

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
--Robert Frost

A jury consists of twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer.
--Robert Frost

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
--Robert Frost

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
--Robert Frost

The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
--Robert Frost

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired
--Robert Frost

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
--Robert Frost

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
--Robert Frost

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.
--Robert Frost

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classical - college prep

ped·ant
Pronunciation: 'pe-d&nt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, from Italian pedante
Date: 1588
1 : obsolete : a male schoolteacher
2 a : one who makes a show of knowledge b : one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge c : a formalist or precisionist in teaching

ped·ant·ry
Pronunciation: 'pe-d&n-trE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ries
Date: 1612
1 : pedantic presentation or application of knowledge or learning
2 : an instance of pedantry