The Gift Outright BY goperT Frost The land was ours before we were the and’s She was oup land more than a hundred years Before we were her people. She was outs + In Massachusetts, in Virginia, But we were England’s, stil colonials, Possessing what we stil were unpossessed by, Possessed by whatiwe now no more possessed! + j... Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found out that itwas ourselves 9 We were withholding from our land of living, ! Y°" ‘And forthwith found salvation in surrender. Such as we were we gaye ourselves/putright (The deed of giflwas many doeds of war)-» Cap) oriey OA To the land vaguely realizing westward, 1. o-nor, rota) dudhog unstoried, artless, unenhancedsinuna, pad gai Yen a et os pes i the would become: a ae Robert Frost, “The Gift Outright” from te Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem, Copyright I9231© 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with — the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.