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.

Robert Lee Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet renowned for his depictions of rural New England life, his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations. Frost's work frequently employed themes from the natural world and championed common speech. He received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and was a much-honored poet of his era. Some of his most famous works include 'The Road Not Taken,' 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,' and 'Mending Wall.'

Robert Lee Frost

Putting In The Seed

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

Lodged

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

The Demiurge's Laugh

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

Love And A Question

Robert Lee Frost, Simple Poetry

English

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Hamatreya

Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
Possessed the land which rendered to their toil
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
Saying, ''Tis mine, my children's and my name's.
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees!
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill!
I fancy these pure waters and the flags
Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize;
And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.'

Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
They added ridge to vall...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

My Land.

I.

She is a rich and rare land;
Oh! she's a fresh and fair land;
She is a dear and rare land--
This native land of mine.


II.

No men than her's are braver--
Her women's hearts ne'er waver;
I'd freely die to save her,
And think my lot divine.


III.

She's not a dull or cold land;
No! she's a warm and bold land;
Oh! she's a true and old land--
This native land of mine.


IV.

Could beauty ever guard her,
And virtue still reward her,
No foe would cross her border--
No friend within it pine!


V.

Oh! she's a fresh and fair land;
Oh! she's a true and rare land;
Yes! she's a rare and fair land--
This native land of mine.

Thomas Osborne Davis

A Boundless Moment

He halted in the wind, and, what was that
Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
He stood there bringing March against his thought,
And yet too ready to believe the most.

'Oh, that's the Paradise-in-bloom,' I said;
And truly it was fair enough for flowers
had we but in us to assume in march
Such white luxuriance of May for ours.

We stood a moment so in a strange world,
Myself as one his own pretense deceives;
And then I said the truth (and we moved on).
A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves.

Robert Lee Frost

The Black Cottage

We chanced in passing by that afternoon
To catch it in a sort of special picture
Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees,
Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass,
The little cottage we were speaking of,
A front with just a door between two windows,
Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black.
We paused, the minister and I, to look.
He made as if to hold it at arm's length
Or put the leaves aside that framed it in.
"Pretty," he said. "Come in. No one will care."
The path was a vague parting in the grass
That led us to a weathered window-sill.
We pressed our faces to the pane. "You see," he said,
"Everything's as she left it when she died.
Her sons won't sell the house or the things in it.
They say they mean to come and summer here
Where they were boy...

Robert Lee Frost

Gifts Returned

"You must give back," her mother said,
To a poor sobbing little maid,
"All the young man has given you,
Hard as it now may seem to do."
"'Tis done already, mother dear!"
Said the sweet girl, "So never fear."
        Mother. Are you quite certain? Come, recount
(There was not much) the whole amount.
    Girl. The locket; the kid gloves.
    Mother. Go on.
    Girl. Of the kid gloves I found but one.
    Mother. Never mind that. What else? Proceed.
You gave back all his trash?
    Girl. Indeed.
    Mother. And was there nothing you would save?
    Girl. Everything I could give I gave.
    Mother. To the last tittle?
    Girl. Even to that.
    Mother. Freely?
    Girl<...

Walter Savage Landor

Earth-Song
'Mine and yours;
Mine, not yours.
Earth endures;
Stars abide--
Shine down in the old sea;
Old are the shores;
But where are old men?
I who have seen much,
Such have I never seen.

'The lawyer's deed
Ran sure,
In tail,
To them, and to their heirs
Who shall succeed,
Without fail,
Forevermore.

'Here is the land,
Shaggy with wood,
With its old valley,
Mound and flood.
But the heritors?--

Fled like the flood's foam.
The lawyer, and the laws,
And the kingdom,
Clean swept herefrom.

'They called me theirs,
Who so controlled me;
Yet every one
Wished to stay, and is gone,
How am I theirs,
If they cannot hold me,
But I hold them?'

When I heard the Earth-song
...
Ralph Waldo Emerson