ROBERT LEE FROST,

   the most quoted and quotable poet in American literature.  Who in America is not familiar with:

       “….and miles to go before I sleep”

       “The Road Not Taken”  

       the poem, “The Gift Outright” read at JFK’s inauguration 

       “Good fences make good neighbors”?

If not recognized, that person must be living on another planet.

     Frost’s personal life was plagued with grief and loss; an alcoholic father, mental illness in the immediate family, deaths of several young children. He, his wife and mother all suffered from depressive episodes. His epitaph: “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world”. 

   Most of his poetry stays clear of religion and politics. He writes of men alone in an indifferent universe. Yet, he uses metaphors of nature to illustrate man’s condition. With much ironic humor and conversational language describing ordinary situations such as walking along a country road and rural life settings, complex social and philosophical themes are explored.

   I believe he did not drink alcohol, but did write a poem about cider, “In A Glass of Cider”.  Therefore, I toast him with both a glass of cider and clear, cool water drawn

from a well on a New England farm.

Elliot O. Lipchik