The Gift Outright
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.
Commentary
Written in 1942, recited at JFK’s inauguration in 1961.
How can you not have this poem yet? Frost wrote a longer poem, “Dedication”
for the inauguration, but the glare of the sun on the snow blinded him (he was 86 years old) and he recited this, which he knew by heart. The inaguration was on a freezing day, the whole northeastern coast was snowed in. As an 11 year old living in New England, we didn’t have school that day because of the snow, and I remember watching the inauguration on TV.
— Sara
Minstrels Links
Robert Frost:
Poem #51, The Road Not Taken
Poem #155, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Poem #170, The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
Poem #336, A Patch of Old Snow
Poem #681, The Secret Sits
Poem #730, Mending Wall
Poem #779, Fire and Ice
Poem #917, A Considerable Speck
Poem #985, Once by the Pacific
Show 6 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Suresh Ramasubramanian · 7 February 2002
Dedication …
Does anybody have a copy of that poem? Searched around, couldn’t find it. It is rather late, however, so my search was a bit cursory to say the least.
That said, I doubt if Frost could have picked a better poem to recite. Simple, effective - and one of the finest expressions of patriotism ever.
-srs
sara g · 7 February 2002
It actually is called
“For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration” or Dedication. There is a photo of the original poem at
[broken link] http://www.americaslibrary.gov/pages/jb_0120_frost_1_e.html It is on page 28 of the 1962 edition of “In the Clearing” (Holt, Rinehart and Winston NY) but it is 3 pages long and I am not going to type it! I couldn’t find it on the web. Maybe someone else will have beter luck,
sara g in israel
Amit Chakrabarti · 7 February 2002
I have a big problem with this “The land was ours” (see line 1) sentiment. It is transparent that Frost does not intend the word “ours” to include the people who have lived on “The land” (i.e. America) for millenia. Funnily, these excluded people were quite definitely “her people” all along (see line 3).
While this poem is well constructed and perhaps even fitting for the occasion of JFK’s inauguration, I have to take it with a lump of salt as the poetry of vanquishers.
–Amit
The Fryling Family · 27 September 2003
I’m not so sure “The Gift Outright” is a “fine example of patriotism” as someone said. If you read the last two lines carefully it seems Frost is actually poking fun American for being “unstoried, artless, and unenhanced.” Such as she was, such as she would become. Sounds to me nothing has changed since we took over the land. Frost was actually a pretty cynical guy (see “Design”, for example) and his poems suffer from misinterpretation (such as “The Road Not Taken, which everyone things is about chosing the unusual path in life, but really FRost says the paths are both equally worn and valid.)
please respond to me at if you want. Hitting reply won’t get to me. Thx.
Stewart Douglas C - Contractor (PKI) · 15 March 2005
I am not sure why you have a problem with the statement “the land was ours”. If you knew the providence of God in those days then you should understand that it was God’s intended purpose to build a nation for His name sake.
Douglas
Chittagong Padding Mills Ltd · 18 January 2008
hi there,
i read yr comment on frost ‘ the road not taken’ can explain elaborately about that ?
regards
arif
bangladesh