Frost held various jobs during the next two
years, and in 1894, he had his first poem pub-
lished in theIndependent, a New York newspaper.
He continued to publish poems in magazines
through the following year, and in 1895, he mar-
ried Elinor Miriam White, with whom he was to
have six children. Two years later, Frost attended
Harvard for one year, where he again studied
Latin and Greek. In 1900, with money from his
grandfather, Frost bought a farm in Derry, New
Hampshire. He farmed and taught English at an
academy in Derry between 1905 and 1911. In
1912, at the age of thirty-eight, Frost sold the
farm and moved his family to England. There,
in 1913, he publishedA Boy’s Willandin1914,
North of Boston, both of which garnered positive
evaluations.North of Bostonwas especially well
received, containing as it does some of Frost’s
most beloved poems: ‘‘Mending Wall,’’ ‘‘Death
of a Hired Man,’’ ‘‘Home Burial,’’ and ‘‘After
Apple-Picking.’’ World War I began, and the
family moved back to New England in 1915. By
that time, the new poet’s reputation was quite well
established in the United States. The family
settled in Franconia, New Hampshire.
Between 1917 and 1920, the poet taught at
Amherst College, and then he moved his family
to a farm in Vermont and helped establish the
Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury
College. He publishedNew Hampshirein 1923
andWest-Running Brookin 1928. During the
following years he taught at a several prestigious
institutions, including University of Michigan,
Dartmouth College, Yale, and Harvard. Various
collections also appeared, includingA Further
Range(1936);A Witness Tree(1942); andStee-
ple Bush(1947). During many of these years, the
poet’s permanent home was in Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts, and Frost owned a summer place in
Ripton, Vermont, where he continued his affili-
ation with the Bread Loaf School.
During his long life, Robert Frost received
many professional honors and endured more than
his share of private tragedy. He was admitted to the
American Academy of Poets (1953), read from
memory his poem ‘‘The Gift Outright’’ at John F.
Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, and was awarded
the Congressional Gold Medal in 1962. He received
honorary degrees from several universities, includ-
ing Cambridge and Oxford. He won the Pulitzer
Prize four times, for New Hampshire;Collected
Poems(1930);A Further Range;andAWitnessTree.
But personal tragedy plagued him and his
family. Mental illness recurred in the family:
Frost’s mother, wife, the poet himself, and two
of their children struggled with depression. His
sister Jeanie spent the last nine years of her life in
a mental institution, and his daughter Irma was
committed to one in 1947. Frost and his wife lost
their first son Elliott in 1900 at age four to cholera,
their second child Elinor one day after she was
born in 1907, and their daughter Marjorie at age
twenty-nine in 1934 from complications following
childbirth. The poet lost his wife to heart failure in
1938, and in 1940, his son Carol committed sui-
cide. Thereafter, the poet was wracked with
depression and drank heavily. During the 1940s,
he formed a long-term relationship with Kathleen
Morrison, who was married. Morrison served as
his secretary and managed his calendar of appear-
ances right up until the poet’s death. The nature of
their personal relationship has been a matter of
speculation. The Morrison-Frost letters, housed
in the Baker Library at Dartmouth College, attest
to their mutual devotion.
Frost died on January 29, 1963, of compli-
cations from prostate surgery. His body was
buried in Bennington, Vermont, and the epitaphRobert Frost(The Library of Congress)
Acquainted with the Night