Insight from An Old Soul and the Great Outdoors
Robert Frost’s enchanting way with words and wisdom.
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In an earlier edition, we talked about what it means—and what it requires—to uphold a standard of excellence. There are many remarkable stories of people whose lives have modeled this well, some of which we’ve covered and others of which are yet to come in our pages. Today, we explore the closely related elements of perseverance and grit in the life and work of American poet, Robert Frost (1874 – 1963).
To set the backdrop, we will highlight a few elements of his story, and you can also read this brief biography from his alma mater for more dates and details. In his 89 years of life, Frost spent considerable time teaching at local schools and farming to make ends meet. Later, as his work was published and his career started to flourish, he taught at the university level, travelled as a lecturer, and won the Pulitzer prize four times for poetry. He showed promise from early on, achieving co-valedictorian his senior year of high school and continuing on to Dartmouth College.
Frost’s style is a unique blend of poetic phrasing and everyday language. Many of his pieces read a bit like prose, but with clear elements of rhyming and rhythm—falling at the end of the Romantic period and into the Twentieth Century, his style seems to bridge some of the more traditional elements of poetry with a more casual, conversational, modern approach. This becomes particularly evident in his later works, some of which are posed as staged plays with characters and prop queues.
On the personal front, he married his high school sweetheart and they had six children together. Providing for his family was both a constant struggle and a driving force in his life alongside his consistent push towards launching his career in poetry. His life was not easy. In addition to decades of piecing together ways to earn a living, he experienced a great deal of loss. His father died when he was just a boy, and only two of his children outlived him—two died in infancy or childhood, and two others faced tragic outcomes in adulthood (one committing suicide and another spending decades in a mental institution).
It is not difficult to correlate several formative moments in his life that, perhaps, made his poetry all the more poignant, and certainly tested—or more likely developed—his perseverance and grit.
One of the most stark examples of this is his piece “Home Burial”, which was published in his second collection titled North of Boston in 1914. By this time, Frost had already lost two young children, so when we read this short story of sorts (116 lines of poetry), we get a glimpse into what his own grief might have looked like. Accounting an interaction between a couple struggling to speak with one another about the loss of their child.
We read heart wrenching, raw, and relatable lines:
"She withdrew, shrinking from beneath his arm That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs; And turned on him with such a daunting look, He said twice over before he knew himself: 'Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?"'
Or describing what it is like to have unspoken, off-limits topics or hurts between “those that love”:
"We could have some arrangement By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off Anything special you're a-mind to name. Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love. Two that don't love can't live together without them. She moved the latch a little. 'Don't--don't go. Don't carry it to someone else this time. Tell me about it if it's something human. Let me into your grief.'"
And then the mother’s pain that almost explodes from the page when the father repeats that he cannot speak of his own child’s death:
"You can't because you don't know how to speak. If you had any feelings, you that dug With your own hand--how could you?--his little grave; I saw you from that very window there, Making the gravel leap and leap in air, Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly And roll back down the mound beside the hole. [...] But I went near to see with my own eyes. You could sit there with the stains on your shoes Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave And talk about your everyday concerns."
I also wonder if providing for his children was on his mind when waxing eloquently on “Blueberries”? This delightful poem certainly evokes sentiments of his experience in farm country, but there are hints of life’s natural constraints and challenges that come through.
Here is an excerpt:
"You ought to see what I saw on my way To the village, through Patterson's pasture today: Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!" [...] "I wonder you didn't see Loren about." "The best of it was that I did. Do you know, I was just getting through what the field had to show And over the wall and into the road, When who should come by, with a democrat-load Of all the young chattering Lorens alive, But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive." [...] "He just kept nodding his head up and down. You know how politely he always goes by. But he thought a big thought--I could tell by his eye-- Which being expressed, might be this in effect: 'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect, To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'" "He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need, With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed? He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say, Like birds. They store a great many away."
We also see the windings of his faith, or perhaps dwindling faith, play out in his later works where he recounts scenes involving the biblical characters of Job in A Masque of Reason (1945) and then Jonah and Paul in A Masque of Mercy (1947). Both reveal some deep questions with which Frost, perhaps, wrestled. Both also pull in elements of the mystical, universal religion of Swedenborgian Church that his mother espoused. In these “Masques” he sets scenes of characters engaging in present day conversations, reflecting back on the original biblical accounts in which they appeared—pulling in layers of complexity and confusion of beliefs. I imagine that most pensive, poetic souls spend a great deal of time in this space. One wonders if Frost’s ranging, deep, and sometimes dark, thoughts emerged in his family life, as well. Certainly, this is a reminder to us of the importance of truth, which serves as an anchor for the soul (we wrote about this in an earlier edition).
But despite some of his more wandering pieces, Frost is still best known for the enduring wisdom that emerged from his most beloved works. Not surprisingly, these deal heavily with the natural world. Given his time spent on the land, as well as his love of botany, it is clear that he used words to bring the beauty and awe of nature to life. Many may be familiar to you. These lines have a way of sticking deep in the mind, emerging from time to time as they relate to life’s events, choices, decisions, and purpose. Like every great work of art or poetry, they remain relevant across the ages.
Here are a few of Frost’s best known and most beloved words of wisdom—from an old soul and the great outdoors.
In “Mending Wall” in North of Boston (1914):
"Good fences make good neighbors."
Or in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from New Hampshire (1923):
"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."
Or in “Death of a Hired Hand” from North of Boston (1914):
"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in."
But I think the most universal line attributed to Frost is a fascinating one. It came in his third collection, published in 1916—and notably, this collection came after a short but important stint in London. After nearly a decade of farming, Frost made the decision to sell the farm and uproot his family to a fresh, new start to see if the publishing appetite in England might provide more opportunity for his prolific work to finally be seen. It worked. His first collection titled A Boy’s Will was published and well received in 1913 and this second collection North of Boston followed shortly thereafter in 1914. Although the family had to return home to the United States in 1915 due to World War I, it didn’t take long for his work to be recognized back home—and the publishing continued.
Could it be that the move across the Atlantic, followed by such immediate success, was on Frost’s mind when he penned the lines below? Indeed, London did make all the difference for him, and we are the happy recipients of his beautiful work.
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."
*All poetry quotations taken from “The Poetry of Robert Frost” edited by Edward Connery Lathem
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