For Robert Frost

Live on Robert, oh wait for my return; Always I'm New England bound As friend Columbus - the other way around - By westward watching. I long to learn To follow other signs than those That mark our Hampshire hills With friendly guides when winter fills The woods with snow. Who knows What route will take me further on, By what direction I shall come To I'm not sure where, nor where from? Not I. I'll be returning with some dawn Though now I'm pointed as going away. For outward bound is really back To former homes somewhere. The parting track Is an arrival eventually - eventually I'll stay. I'll stay at my starting, but not for long, For one more hearing of that sweet sound Which gathers all the living around And adds a joke to make a song. I'll stay to converse light heart to heart; You've some new thoughts I'd hear you say And I've some ideas since being away. But one full encounter before we depart For other hills and lands to win Than these our youth and age obey. I'll be traveling on; and you and yesterday Are back where journeys end, or else begin.

Ensign Corbet, on his way to Vietnam in mid-January, wrote his poem inSan Francisco and asked that, if printed, a copy be sent to Robert Frost uponhis release from the hospital. Mr. Frost died some days later, on January 29.This poetic expression of affection by a fellow Dartmouth alumnus would havepleased him.