"The Gift Outright" is a poem written by Robert Frost. Frost first recited it at the College of William & Mary on December 5, 1941, but its most famous recitation occurred on January 20, 1961 at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.
Publication and inaugural recitation
The poem was first published in the Virginia Quarterly Review in Spring 1942. It was collected in Frost's volume A Witness Tree in 1943. According to Jeffrey S. Cramer the poem may have been written as early as 1936.
At the presidential inauguration Frost recited "The Gift Outright" from memory instead of reading his new poem "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration".
References
The Gift Outright Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA