You must let me cry my cry for him
Robert Frost writes to the widow of a dear friend
This moving letter, written today in 1917, can also be found in the book, Letters of Note: Grief. Details here. On the accompanying audiobook, this letter is read by Toby Jones.
It was in 1915, aged thirty-seven, that British poet and writer Edward Thomas joined the British Army—a decision prompted, in part, by The Road Not Taken, a poem by his close friend Robert Frost that had in fact been inspired by Thomas, a person who, Frost later said1, “whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other. He was hard on himself that way.” Two years after enlisting, on Easter Monday of 1917, Thomas was killed in action during the Battle of Arras. He was survived by his wife, Helen, and their three children. A few weeks after Thomas died, Helen received this letter from Frost, who was overcome with grief.
Amherst Mass
April 27 1917
Dear Helen:
People have been praised for self-possession in danger. I have heard Edward doubt if he was as brave as the bravest. But who was ever so completely himself right up to the verge of destruction, so sure of his thought, so sure of his word? He was the bravest and best and dearest man you and I have ever known. I knew from the moment when I first met him at his unhappiest that he would some day clear his mind and save his life. I have had four wonderful years with him. I know he has done this all for you: he is all yours. But you must let me cry my cry for him as if he were almost all mine too.
Of the three ways out of here, by death where there is no choice, by death where there is a noble choice, and by death where there is a choice not so noble, he found the greatest way. There is no regret—nothing that I will call a regret. Only I can’t help wishing he could have saved his life without so wholly losing it and come back from France not too much hurt to enjoy our pride in him. I want to see him to tell him something. I want to tell him, what I think he liked to hear from me, that he was a poet. I want to tell him that I love those he loved and hate those he hated. (But the hating will wait: there will be a time for hate.) I had meant to talk endlessly with him still, either here in our mountains as we had said or, as I found my longing was more and more, there at Leddington where we first talked of war.
It was beautiful as he did it. And I don’t suppose there is anything for us to do to show our admiration but to love him forever.
Robert
—To read The Road Not Taken, now one of Frost’s most popular poems, visit poets.org.
—For more on their friendship, and Thomas’ decision to enlist, this 2011 piece by Matthew Hollis is a good start.
—Should you wish to read more of Frost’s letters, you can either grab a second-hand copy of Selected Letters of Robert Frost (now out-of-print) or dive into the Letters of Robert Frost series, of which there are three volumes so far. All are great.
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Letter originally from Selected Letters of Robert Frost, ed Lawrance Thompson, copyright © 1964 by Lawrance Thompson and Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company; and The Random House Group Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Frost said this of Thomas at a writers’ conference in August 1953.
Heartbreakingly beautiful. And what a beautiful man he was.