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  • Frost-The Gift Outright

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    Lautaro Avalos
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    The poem discusses the relationship between America and its early settlers. It describes how the land belonged to the settlers before they belonged to the land, as colonists of England. However, the settlers found salvation by fully committing themselves to the land through war and westward expansion, realizing the land's undeveloped potential. In doing so, the settlers surrendered themselves outright as a deed of gift to the developing land of America.

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    The poem discusses the relationship between America and its early settlers. It describes how the land belonged to the settlers before they belonged to the land, as colonists of England. However, the settlers found salvation by fully committing themselves to the land through war and westward expansion, realizing the land's undeveloped potential. In doing so, the settlers surrendered themselves outright as a deed of gift to the developing land of America.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    2 views1 page

    Frost-The Gift Outright

    Uploaded by

    Lautaro Avalos
    The poem discusses the relationship between America and its early settlers. It describes how the land belonged to the settlers before they belonged to the land, as colonists of England. However, the settlers found salvation by fully committing themselves to the land through war and westward expansion, realizing the land's undeveloped potential. In doing so, the settlers surrendered themselves outright as a deed of gift to the developing land of America.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    The Gift Outright

    BY ROBERT FROST

    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 Frost, “The Gift Outright” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward
    Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed
    1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
    Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost (Henry Holt & Co., 1969)

    Retrieved: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53013/the-gift-outright

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