The Gift Outright
Robert Frost * Track #1 On A Witness Tree
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The Gift Outright by Robert Frost
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Robert FrostAbout
Frost recited this poem at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. This was the first time a poet had read for the inauguration
(He recited this poem with a longer preface which he called “preliminary history in rhyme”. He called the piece as a whole “Gift Outright of ‘The...
The Gift Outright Annotated
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.