Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World

[Birds Chirping]

[ Frost ]

A career like mine, you know...

could end, as someone might

say mockingly...

What began in felicity

and the privacy and secrecy...

and furtiveness of your poetry...

is ending in a burst of publicity.

We won't talk about that too much.

[ Man Narrating]

Robert Lee Frost...

named for Robert E. Lee.

1874 to 1963.

San Francisco to Boston.

Recognition as a poet

didn't come until 1913 in London.

In 1938, he feared he was finished.

He said that courage

is the virtue that counts most.

[ Man ] What about the courage

it takes to live to be 88?

That's- The less said

about that the better.

[All Laughing]

You don't Want to scare me.

[All Laughing]

- Ah, there.

-[ Man] ls it courage or luck?

No, something-

It's being sick when you're young.

- [ All Laughing]

- That's it.

See, I had bad health

when I was young.

- So I- this is just sheer evening it up.

- [All Chuckling ]

Living on. Have a better-

Ive heard that said before.

Somebody else was like that,

delicate when he was young...

rugged when he was old.

God evened it up to him.

[ Narrator]

Out of 40 years of obscurity...

he found his own voice.

[ Frost Reciting ]

A voice said, Look me in the stars...

and tell me truly men of earth...

if all the soul-and-body scars...

were not too much to pay for birth.

[ Narrator]

He pursued an art...

most men scorned

as impractical if not feminine.

I tell ya, every time I catch a man

red-handed, reading my book...

- a man, see.

- Yeah, yeah.

He'll- He looks up

and says brightly...

My wife's a great fan of yours.

- [ Both Chuckling]

- Every time!

[ Narrator]

He lived to win.

It will be some time

before anyone sums him up.

But in 1941 he wrote

his own epitaph:

[No Audible Dialogue]

I had a lover's quarrel with the World.

That's me.

I thought of modifying that...

to say I had my lovers quarrels,

plural, with the World.

But I make that one sustained

quarrel all my life. [Chuckles]

[ Man Chuckles]

Lover's quarrel- ifs a long

sustained quarrel.

The artist, however faithful

to his personal vision of reality...

becomes the lost champion...

of the individual mind and sensibility...

against an intrusive society

and an officious state.

The great artist

is thus a solitary figure.

He has, as Frost said,

a lovers quarrel with the world.

In pursuing his

perceptions of reality...

he must often sail against

the currents of his time.

This is not a popular role.

If Robert Frost was much honored

during his lifetime...

it was because a good many

preferred to ignore his darker truths.

I think we're proud of Mr. Frost...

and his interpretations of What

we feel is the best of America.

And therefore...

I present this award...

to our very good friend...

who-

- Picture of him too.

- And ifs a picture of you and ifs a-

Thank you.

Would you say a word here?

Of course this is- this is sort of

the height of my life, you know...

and on a wave of poetry, isn't it'?

And- And I've-

That ought to be enough to say.

[ Kennedy ]

I knew Mr. Frost quite late in his life.

Really the last four or five years.

And I was impressed

by a good many qualities...

but also by his toughness.

He was not particularly belligerent

in his relations, his human relations.

But he felt very strongly

that the Unites States...

should be country of power,

of force...

to use that power and force Wisely.

But he once said to me

not to let the Harvard in me...

- get to be too important.

- [ Listeners Laugh ]

So we've- we've followed that advice.

You never know What I'll do next.

It's time I stopped, you know.

'Tis time this-

should I be quieted down.

[ Narrator]

But he wasn't about to stop.

Boston to San Francisco

and back again.

He told a fellow poet...

Hell is a half-filled auditorium.

The city boy

who failed as a farmer...

was on the road.

I faced a young man

and his Wife in the train...

not so- lately.

And I kinda liked him.

I said to him...

What do you do?

Just as you got to the point of sayin'

What do you do?

And he looked toward his Wife

for permission...

and he said, As a matter of fact,

Im an exterminator.

- [ Man Laughs]

- I said, Just the man Im lookin' for.

Can anything be exterminated?

And he says, Nothing.

He took the same attitude,

spread his arms, oratorical.

He said,

Nothing can be exterminated.

Bedbugs, lice,

cockroaches or people.

I said, My next lecture.

[Chattering ]

[ Frost ]

This public life Ive got into is-

is more or less an accident.

I never set out to do it.

I got $50 for doing it once, first.

And I got called out into it,

and I needed the living.

I nearly died doin' it,

but I conquered it, sort of.

But still there are reserves...

- things I don't Wear on my sleeve.

- [Audience Applauding]

[Applause Ends]

Well-

Uh, ifs very nice to be back with you.

I feel as if I had a new president.

[All Laughing]

[ Narrator] Acknowledging

the introduction of his host...

the new president

of Sarah Lawrence College...

Mr. Frost is reminded of his old friend

and contemporary Vachel Lindsay.

I- I was as happy about Vachel...

as we jealous poets, artists,

can be, you know.

- [ Audience Laughs ]

- We-

He was one I could be happy about.

Some I- Some Im afraid

I am too jealous of.

- But I really don't like 'em.

- [Audience Laughing]

I strive to get over

dislike and all that...

but it doesn't come out very well.

And Im always glad when one

I don't like, very honestly...

that Ive tried to like-

when he gets mad at me,

so I don't have to read him anymore.

- [Audience Laughs Loudly]

- Don't have to strive with him.

It's a funny World.

But Vachel was one of these

very disarming people...

very good boy...

and one of the real kind of...

genius, you can call it.

Call it- You could say there was

a little strangeness about him.

He was a little touched.

But you could call it divinely touched.

He had something very fine

about him, lofty...

and he did some very crazy things.

He knew how

to do 'em Without trying.

- [ Audience Laughs]

- He'd end up- There was- He was-

Some of these poets seemed to me

to get in a corner...

and gnaw their fingernails

and try to get a dark corner...

- and try to go crazy so they'd qualify.

- [Audience Laughs]

And there's none of that in Vachel.

He was crazy in his own right.

[ Frost Mutters ]

Some of the strangest things.

I ought to tell ya What you're

seeing here on this sideshow.

[Audience Laughs]

This is a documentary film going on.

And this- they've been in-

two or three of 'em,

for government purpose.

And they-

They've all been about me...

with a hoe, digging potatoes,

or walking in the Woods...

- reciting my own poems, which I-

- [Audience Laughs Loudly]

Something I don't-

I don't farm very much

for a good many years.

A little- I have a little garden.

But it's a false picture

that represents me...

as always digging potatoes

or sayin' my own poems in the woods.

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