1915: War rages across northern France; T. S. Eliot publishes "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in Poetry; "Birches" appears in the Atlantic Monthly. Frost is forced to return to America by the war, while Eliot moves to London.

1948: Eliot receives the Nobel Prize for literature. By this time, Frost had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry an unprecedented four times (1924, 1931, 1937, 1943)—yet, much to his dismay, he is never considered for the Nobel Prize. This is perhaps due to his deep association with New England and the apparent concern of his poetry only with its landscape, as opposed to Eliot's more cosmopolitan life and his concern with the universal issues of life and religion.

1961: Frost is selected to read his poem "The Gift Outright" at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration. Frost at this point has held the position of official U.S. Poet...