In 1894 he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly: An Elegy" (published in the November 8, 1894 edition of the
New York Independent) for fifteen dollars. Proud of this accomplishment, he proposed marriage to Elinor Miriam White, but she refused, wanting to finish college (at
St. Lawrence University) before they married. Frost then went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in
Virginia, and asked Elinor again upon his return. Having been graduated, she agreed, and they were married in
Harvard University, which he attended for two years.
He did well, but left to support his growing family. Grandfather Frost purchased a farm for the young couple in
Derry, New Hampshire, shortly before his death. Frost worked on the farm for nine years and wrote many of the poems early in the mornings that would later become famous. His attempts at farming were not successful and Frost returned to education as an English teacher at
Pinkerton Academy from 1906 to 1911, then at the New Hampshire Normal School (now Plymouth State University) in
Plymouth, New Hampshire.
In 1912, Frost sailed with his family to
Great Britain, living first in
Glasgow, before settling in
Beaconsfield, outside
London. His first book of poetry,
A Boy's Will, was published the next year. In England he made some important acquaintances including
Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the
Dymock Poets),
T.E. Hulme, and
Ezra Pound. Pound would become the first American to write a (favorable) review of Frost's work. Surrounded by his peers, Frost wrote some of his best work while in England.
As World War I began, Frost returned to America in 1915. He bought a farm in
Franconia, New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching, and lecturing. The family homestead at Franconia, which served as his summer home until 1938, is maintained as a museum and poetry conference site. From 1916 to 1938, Frost was an English Professor at
Amherst College, encouraging his students to account for the sounds of the human voice in their craft. Starting in 1921, and for the next 42 years (with three exceptions), Frost spent his summers and into late fall teaching at the "Bread Loaf School of English" of
Middlebury College in Ripton, Vermont. The college now owns and maintains Robert Frost's farm as a national historic site near the Bread Loaf campus.
Frost was 86 when he spoke at the inauguration of
President Kennedy on January 20, 1961. He died a little more than two years later, in
Boston, on January 29, 1963. He was buried at the Old Bennington Cemetery, in
Bennington, Vermont. Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates his having received an honorary degree there; Frost also received honorary degrees from Bates College and Oxford and Cambridge universities, and he was the first to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, as well as the main library of Amherst College were named after him.
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