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Dedication Poem

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Name: Dedication by Robert Frost
Date: January 20, 1961 [end date?]
Location: [location?]
Topic: Object / Work of Art

Profile manager: Aaron Stump | Last profile change on 9 March 2009

Description

Originally, Robert Frost planned to recite the poem Dedication for John F. Kennedy's 1961 presidential inauguration. However, due to sun glare Frost was unable to read the page. Instead he recited The Gift Outright from memory.

The version in the picture reads:

Summoning artists to participate
In the August occasion of the state
Seems something for us all to celebrate.

This day is for my cause a day of days,
And his be poetry's old-fashioned praise
Who was the first to think of such a thing.

This tribute verse to be his or I bring
Is about the new order of the sages
God nodded His approval of as good.

So much those sages knew and understood
(The mighty four of them were Washington,
John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison) -

So much they saw as consecrated seers
They must have seen how in two hundred years.

The full poem was typed out as follows:

Summoning artists to participate In the August occasions of the state Seems something artists ought to celebrate. Today is for my cause a day of days. And his be poetry's old-fashioned praise Who was the first to think of such a thing. This verse that in acknowledgement I bring Goes back to the beginning of the end Of what had been for centuries the trend; A turning point in modern history. Colonial had been the thing to be As long as the great issue was to see What country'd be the one to dominate By character, by tongue, by native trait, The new world Christopher Columbus found. The French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were downed And counted out. Heroic deeds were done. Elizabeth the First and England won. Now came on a new order of the ages That in the Latin of our founding sages (Is it not written on the dollar bill We carry in our purse and pocket still?) God nodded his approval of as good. So much those heroes knew and understood, I mean the great four, Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison So much they saw as consecrated seers They must have seen ahead what not appears, They would bring empires down about our ears And by the example of our Declaration Make everybody was to be a nation. And this is no aristocratic joke At the expense of negligible folk. We see how seriously the races swarm In their attempts at sovereignty and form. They are our wards we think to some extent For the time being and with their consent, To teach them how Democracy is meant. "New order of the ages" did they say? If it looks none too orderly today, 'Tis a confusion that it was ours to start So in it have to take courageous part. No one of honest feeling would approve. A ruler who pretended not to love A turbulence he had the better of. Everyone who knows the glory of the twain Who gave America the aeroplane To ride in the whirlwind and the hurricane. Some poor fool has been saying in his heart Glory is out of date in life and art. Our venture in revolution and outlawry Has justifies itself in freedom's story Right down to now in glory upon glory. Come fresh from an election like the last, The greatest vote a people ever cast, So close yet sure to be abided by, It is no miracle our mood is high. Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs Better than all the stalemate an's and ifs. There was the book in profile tales declaring For the emboldened politicians daring To break with followers when in the wrong, A healthy independence of the throng, A democratic form of the right devine To rule the first answerable to high design. There is a call to life a littler sterner, And braver for the earner, learner, yearner. Less criticism of the field and court And more preoccupation with the sport. It makes the prophet in us all presage The glory of a next Augustan age Of a power leading from its strength and pride, Of young ambition eager to be tried, Firm in our free beliefs without dismay, In any game the nations want to play. A golden age of poetry and power Of which this noonday's the beginning hour.


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Robert Frost's original Dedication poem.
Robert Frost's original Dedication poem.
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Dedication Poem