SOURCE: “Learning to Hover,” in Twentieth Century Literature, Winter, 1999, Vol. 45, No. 4, p. 534–52.

In the following essay, Stambuk discusses the influence of Robert Frost on Francis, and compares the works of the two poets.

In Robert Francis's reminiscence of Robert Frost, A Time to Talk, the entry dated April 4, 1932, contains a poem published the day before in the Springfield Republican and Union. Francis wrote the poem to commemorate Frost's arrival at Amherst. Here are its final stanzas:

Best of all—you've heard?—he comes to stay. This is his home now. He is here for good. To leave us now would be running away. (I too would stay forever if I could.) While he stays, life that breathless fugitive, Will stay. While he lives, some things here won't die. And we, breathing his air, may learn to live Close to the earth, like him, and near the sky. 

An...