‘THE GIFT OUT RIGHT’

Robert Frost

Solo 1: The land was ours before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people.

All: She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Solo 1: Something we were withholding left us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

All: (The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

Solo 1: To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

All: Such as she was, such as she would become.