Robert Frost on the Heavens

Robert Frost's first published poem was "My Butterfly: An Elegy" in the New York literary journal "The Independent" in 1894.

In 1895, he married Elinor Miriam White and they later operated a farm in Derry, New Hampshire, where Frost taught at Derry's Pinkerton Academy. In 1912, he sold his farm and moved his family to England, where he devoted himself to writing. He was an immediate success in England where he published "A Boy's Will" (1913) and "North of Boston"(1914). In England he was influenced by Rupert Brooke and Robert Graves and established a life-long friendship with Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and publish his work.

Frost returned to the United states in 1915 where he continued to write. By the 1920's, he was the most celebrated poet in North America and was awarded four Pulitzer Prizes.

Frost taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died on January 29, 1963 in Boston. He is a American literary star whose light continues to shine in a nation that hardly takes time to look at the stars and constellations.

On Looking Up by Chance at the Constellations

by Robert Frost

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much

To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud

And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.

The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,

Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.

The planets seem to interfere in their curves

But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.

We may as well go patiently on with our life,

And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun

For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.

It is true the longest drought will end in rain,

The longest peace in China will end in strife.

Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake

In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break

On his particular time and personal sight.

That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.