Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented US President Joe Biden with a special gift to honour his wisdom and experience, earning him the title ‘Drishta Sahasrachandro,’ meaning a wise man who has seen one thousand moons on the completion of 80 years and eight months. The gift included a copy of the first edition of The Ten Principal Upanishads by Shree Purohit Swami and WB Yeats, published by M/s Faber and Faber Ltd of London and printed at the Glasgow University Press in 1937. This gift holds significance because President Biden has often quoted and referenced the works and poetry of the renowned Irish poet William Butler Yeats in his public speeches, showcasing his admiration for Yeats’ writings.
In return, PM Modi received the first edition of the poems of Robert Frost, a highly esteemed poet and four-time winner of the Pulitzer Award, who served as the Poet Laureate of the Congressional Library. Frost’s poetry has made a lasting impact, with lines such as “the woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep” from his poem ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ adorning the work-table of Prime Minister Nehru. In the Circuit House of Dehradun, which later became the Raj Bhawan, the lines were etched on a wooden plaque for all to see and remember. Nehru was quite fond of this guest house, and was there just a few days before he died.
This essay delves into the extensive corpus of Frost’s works, starting from his early composition ‘Twilight and Butterfly’ during his teenage years as a lovestruck youth, all the way to his final poem, ‘The Gift Outright’, which he recited at the Kennedy inaugural.
Frost’s poetic journey
Let us embark on a journey through Frost’s remarkable achievements, beginning with his first Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, New Hampshire, in 1924. This collection includes the famous poem ‘Stopping by the Woods’, as well as ‘Fire and Ice’. Written in 1920, shortly after the end of World War I, ‘Fire and Ice’ explores themes of revolution, apocalypse, and social and political chaos that were prevalent during that time. The poem’s imagery of fire symbolises rage, war, and passion, while ice represents cold indifference and passivity. The poem’s ambiguity and deep symbolic quality allow for various interpretations.
Frost won his second Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for his collection Collected Poems, which features his debut work ‘A Boy’s Will’ and the renowned ‘The Road Not Taken’. In ‘A Boy’s Will’, Frost reflects on the pensive musings of a young mind, expressing the notion that by forswearing the world, one can become more authentic to oneself. In ‘The Road Not Taken’, the protagonist faces a fork in the road, lamenting the need to choose one path over the other. He convinces himself that he will return to take the alternate path someday, but there lingers a sense that he may never have the opportunity. Interestingly, the two paths are equally covered with leaves, challenging the notion that one is truly “less travelled by.” The poem serves as a bittersweet exploration of how we often rewrite our own histories to justify the decisions we make.
Frost’s collection A Further Range, which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, was dedicated to his beloved wife, Elinor Frost — “for what it may mean to her that beyond the White Mountains were the Green; beyond both were the Rockies, the Sierras, and, in thought, the Andes and the Himalayas—range beyond range even into the realm of government and religion.”. Perhaps he had a premonition of her impending death, as she passed away within a year of the publication.
One of Frost’s renowned poems, ‘Mending Wall’, explores humanity’s innate desire to mark and set boundaries for its territories, homes, and gardens. While Frost viewed such markers as remnants of an earlier stage in human development, his neighbour argues that “Good fences make good neighbors”. The poem is often misunderstood, as Frost himself noted, but he chose to keep the secret of its true meaning. ‘Mending Wall’ can be analysed as a contrast between Frost’s approach to life and human relationships, characterised by a desire to bridge divides, and his neighbour’s more rigid perspective on maintaining boundaries.
The period between Frost’s publication of A Further Range and A Witness Tree, which earned him his final Pulitzer Prize in 1943, was marked by profound personal tragedies. In 1940, his son Carol tragically took his own life, and another daughter, Marjorie, had already passed away. This collection includes the iconic poem ‘The Gift Outright’, which Frost recited from memory at President Kennedy’s inaugural ceremony.
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 unstudied, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
This powerful piece was intended to be followed by Frost’s poem ‘The Dedication’ during the inaugural, which spoke of “The greatest vote a people ever cast”, and hoped that President Kennedy would lead the nation to the “next Augustan age” — “A golden age of poetry and power / Of which this noonday’s the beginning hour.”
When the poet joined the range beyond the realm of government and religion, President Kennedy said of him: Frost “saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
The exchange of these first editions serves as a testament to the deep appreciation and mutual admiration between the two countries, as well as the timeless influence of poets like Yeats, Frost, and their ability to inspire and connect people through their words.
Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He tweets @ChopraSanjeev. Views are personal.