Mary Beth Norton

When I was a 17-year-old freshman at the University of Michigan in the academic year 1960-61, I was caught up in the excitement of John F. Kennedy’s quest for the presidency, although I was still too young to vote. And so I eagerly watched his inauguration on TV on the morning of January 20, 1961. Thus I witnessed the famous moment when Robert Frost, scheduled to read a poem he had drafted for the occasion, could not see the text in the bright sunlight and instead recited a verse he had written in 1923 about American history, “The Gift Outright.” I had never heard it before, but as a budding American historian I found that its words resonated with me. I subsequently looked up the text. I loved the language, and I memorized it: