Turn away from your life—away from the noise!—
Leaving the Connaught and Carlos Place behind.
Hidden away behind those redbrick buildings across the street are
serious joys:
Green grandeur on a small enough scale to soothe your mind,
And birdsong as liquid as life was before you were born.
Whenever I’m in London I stop by this delightful garden to hear
The breeze in the palatial trees blow its shepherd’s horn.
I sit on a bench in Mount Street Gardens and London is nowhere near.
Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco, California. His
father William Frost, a journalist and an ardent Democrat, died when
Frost was about eleven years old. His Scottish mother, the former
Isabelle Moody, resumed her career as a schoolteacher to support
her family. The family lived in Lawrence, Massachusetts, with Frost's
paternal grandfather, William Prescott Frost, who gave his grandson
a good schooling. In 1892 Frost graduated from a high school and
attended Darthmouth College for a few months. Over the next ten
years he held a number of jobs. Frost worked among others in a
textile mill and taught Latin at his mother's school in Methuen,
Massachusetts. In 1894 the New York Independent published Frost's
poem 'My Butterfly' and he had five poems privately printed. Frost
worked as a teacher and continued to write and publish his poems in
magazines. In 1895 he married a former schoolmate, Elinor White;
they
had
six
children.
65
Le portrait magazine