ROBERT FROST ... DID YOU KNOW?

             ROBERT FROST ... Did you know?             A Tribute by Marggie Rassler
                       
                      What makes an artist's heart beat with such enchanting magic? What emotions,
                       experienced by the soul create such memorable works? Here's what I found.

              ROBERT FROST  (1874-1963)
 
               Did you know that Robert Frost:

                     1. Received four times Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry.

                     2. Sold his first poem, My Butterfly. An Elegy, for $15, in 1894.

                     3. Proposed to his wife, Elinor Miriam White, twice before she said "YES."

                     4. When Frost was eleven his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with
                          just eight dollars.
       
                     5. Had six children with Elinor.
        
                     6. Suffered immense grief. Mental illness ran in his family.
                        He committed his younger sister, Jeanie, 
                        to a mental hospital where she died.
                        Both he and his mother suffered from depression.
                        He lost a son, Elliot, to cholera, an one son, Carol,
                        committed suicide. Daughter, Marjorie, died of
                        puerperal fever and daughter Elinor died just
                        three days after her birth. Robert Frost,
                        already  acquainted with much grief
                        lost his wife to cancer and heart failure in 1938.
  
                      7. Frost moved to England with his family in 1912. There he was very much
                           appreciated. His first  poetry volumes were published in London in 1913,
                           (A Boy's Will and North of Boston).

                      8. In 1915, Robert Frost launched his career in the U.S., as writer, teacher
                          and lecturer in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he bought a farm.
 
                      9. At 86, Robert Frost performed a reading of his well-known poem,
                          The Gift Outright, at the inaguration of President John F. Kennedy.

                    10. Robert Frost died in Boston two years later, January 29, 1963.

       

                                                                 
                                                                    Robert Frost ... My Tribute
       
                                                                         
           

 A Dance With Frost,  by Marggie Rassler      

I dance,

With Robert Frost

Today, and with

His words,

I trace his face.                                                                                                    

I twirl through worlds

Of roads not taken,

And woods of

Downy flakes awaken,

While little horse

May feel forsaken....

I dance and dance

By verses held,

The power of

This poet's spell.

Will stay in step,

Will learn his art?

Have my own dance,

Within my heart?

Want much to write,

Before I sleep...

Want much, to write

Before I sleep.