Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
When the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review contacted Frost for the submission that turned out to be this poem, he wrote "Our rate in general for poetry is based upon the somewhat illogical custom of fifty cents the line but it seems to me there are two or three poets in America who should fix their own rates." The Virginia Quarterly Review's website didn't say how much Frost charged them… (Source)
Frost and his wife lived in England from 1912-1915. Could the "luminary clock" in this poem actually have been Big Ben? (Source)
In 1962, the year before his death due to heart problems, Frost traveled to the USSR to speak with Premier Nikita Khrushchev, on President Kennedy's request. This meeting was not terribly successful. (Source)