“Bond and Free” by Robert Frost encapsulates Alexander Hamilton

My family and I went to see Hamilton performed at the Victoria theatre tonight in Westminster, or at least the western part of London. I carry a really relaxed energy around my family. With my Mom in the tube as we were heading back I was reflecting on how my personal significance of the word “soon” has changed, two months again I caught myself realizing that I was calling two months soon after having spent eight months apart from my parents, two months certainly felt soon. I told my Mom that there’s a line in Hamilton that realy moves me, Angelica writes to Alexander: “Soon you won’t be an ocean away. Soon, you’ll only be a moment away.” Gosh, that gets me. That’s how I felt longing for my family, that at last I am reunited with.

It was a fantastic show. It was a moment of unique national pride in being American, especially in the company of a British audience.

On the way home, I realized that the underlying source of tension, between that of family and political ambition, that defines Hamilton’s life is poeticized in Robert Frost’s “Bond and Free”.

It was specifically the opening stanza that the musical Hamilton reminded me of tonight. First I’ll address the poems nature and then will intertwine Hamilton and his relationship.

The poem begins by introducing the two contrasting protagonists: “love” and “thought”. Contrasting figures indeed, as one is bonded and the other freed (hence the title). Thought, in all its lofty ambition, has no concern for the mundane responsibilities that Love is tethered by, and takes for the heavens. While thought pursues glory in the celestial realm, Love remains quite content awaiting on earth, assisting to the, as William Wordsworth put it, “…little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love” that’s quite a profound message to internalize: in love there is a great humility of service. That’s a very grounding force.

“The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.’

— William Wordsworth

The same sort of passion and zealousness that drives “thought” in this poem drove Hamilton’s political ascension. However ultimately, it was a double edged sword as his insatiable desire for high status brought about his demise.

This duality is reflected in the reference to the Greek mythological story of Icarus and Daedalus. It seems the figure of thought has a brief scare whilst flying to closely to the sun: “with smell of burning on every plume”. The subtle reference contributes to the latent critique of this groundless, restless force.

The concluding stanza that “His gains in heaven are what they are”. Thought, also to be conceived as ambition, is interestingly masculinized. Frost may have very well have looked at a figure like Hamilton, for who for the sake of achieving his political power underwent the premature death of his son, deprived himself of family vacation, and ruptured the love with his wife Eliza Skyler with an affair.

Hamilton and his “pair of dauntless wings” could not be held down from the celestial realm of glory. He is fittingly an Alexander, harkening to another Alexander obsessed equality with glory and legacy. Frost poem is a cautionary tale of this ambition. Thought in all its aspiration and achievement in the end is a zero sum game. A summer debating in congress was more appetizing to Hamilton to secure his federalist plan, than spending time by the lake with his family, with his wife who yearned for his time.

Frost concludes on this matter rather quite succinctly: it’s the loving more humble path of love that “possesses all”.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.

Right now we’re figuring out the towel situation in the apartment. I am writing this in the background of our concern over how we’ll shower.