The Gift Outright

In "The Gift Outright" by Robert Frost, a feeling of patriotism is expressed. However, as the poem moves along, this patriotism is found by who we assume are colonists. The speaker begins by talking about how they have this land, but England still has them. They have not become independent yet, so while the land was theirs, it wasn't only theirs. They had to share it with the motherland England, for whom they were still colonists living in British colonies.

The speaker midway through the poem realizes that they are still "possessed" by the country far away, even though they are a great distance away, and realizes with the line "Possessed by what we now no more possessed" that they can be free from control of this country across an entire ocean. They realize that it is themselves that had been keeping them weak from moving onward, and pushing forward.

The last part of this poem continues to look forward into the unexplored land. The narrator sees the potential westward, describing the land in an artistic way. This "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" land is open to their dreams of independence. This open land serves as a symbol of freedom. They see it as untouched, and therefore can be as they wish. The last line of the poem is "Such as she was, such as she would become." The colonists see the freedom that awaits them in the vast yet to be seen land. They dream of what the land is to one day once become.