Provide, Provide Robert Frost's seminal poem on the emotional needs of old age.

The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag
Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.

Some have relied on what they knew,
Others on being simply true.
What worked for them might work for you.

No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard
Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!

Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874-1963) is considered one of the United States' most central poetic voices. Although his work is best know through its depictions of rural New England, his poems also spoke in a modern voice often concerned with psychological complexity. Frost served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1958 to 1959. President John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration Frost delivered a poem, said, “He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.”

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