The New York Times-20080128-A Violation of Both the Law and the Spirit

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A Violation of Both the Law and the Spirit

Full Text (1015  words)[Author Affiliation] Online: Audio slide show with Prof. John Elder of Middlebury College at nytimes.com/danbarry.

Imagining that late December night of long darkness, you can almost hear these youths of Vermont tramping up to the isolated farmhouse to intrude upon the sanctuary stillness. The break of snow beneath their feet would be the least of it.

They had driven or walked a half-mile up a snow-covered lane called Frost Road, then trudged past a large blue sign that explained the historic significance of the farmhouse and the cabin beyond. And now they were entering the coldness of an uninhabited place, carrying with them cases of beer, bottles of rum and a store of ignorance about things that matter here.

Over the next several hours, more than 30 teenagers and young adults toasted their post-adolescence with liquor carrying the added kick of illicitness. By early morning they were gone, leaving a wounded house watched over by winter-stripped birches and sugar maples.

The damage left in their wake reflected some alcohol-induced mischief tinged with certain anger. Broken window, broken screen, broken dishes, broken antiques. Pieces of a broken chair used for wood in the fireplace. Gobs of phlegm spat upon hanging artwork. Vomit, urine, beer everywhere. And a blanket of yellow, pollenlike dust, discharged from fire extinguishers in parting punctuation.

Before long, distressing word spread from Ripton to Middlebury and beyond that the preserved farmhouse once owned by Robert Frost had been vandalized -- desecrated, some said. If these children of the Green Mountains knew this house was once Frost's, then shame. If they did not know, then shame still; they should have. How many had been weaned on Frost? How many had tromped through here on class trips and family outings?

It seemed once that Robert Frost would be with us forever, like some lichen-laced stone in a field. But finally he did die, in 1963 at the age of 88, leaving biographers to quarrel about his merits as a man and readers to marvel over his body of work, which, among other achievements, twinned a mastery of language with wisdom about natural things.

Here, though, Frost lingers. Peering down from his portrait in the Middlebury Inn. Speaking through snippets of poetry displayed at the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail. Shuffling in spirit around the Homer Noble Farm, which he bought in 1939 and lived in during summer and fall: there in the rustic cabin above, writing, ruminating, while his close friend and protector, Kay Morrison, in the now-vandalized farmhouse just below, screened visitors eager for an audience with the great and garrulous bard -- who might very well talk and talk until those visitors fairly begged to be dismissed.

Imagining still, as all poets invite us to, you can almost see Frost observing the vandalism and aftermath from that cabin above, wondering briefly whether these youths were, say, acolytes of Carl Sandburg, exacting revenge because Frost considered their hero poet second-rate. Sipping his tea, he rummages through his mind's deep storehouse for the metaphors that would provide context, that would find renewal in this destruction.

A day or so after the vandalism, a passing hiker alerted Middlebury College, which now owns the property, that the farmhouse door was open. Then a car wedged in snow off the main road led the authorities to a young man who said he had been at a party in the area. Oh really, said Sgt. Lee Hodsden of the state police.

With the help of Officer Scott Fisher of the Middlebury police, who is based mostly at Middlebury Union High School, Sergeant Hodsden gathered names, called in witnesses and heard accounts of that night, some delivered through tears, a couple with indifference. What emerged was a small-town epic about so much more than $10,000 in damages.

A 17-year-old boy who had once worked as a kitchen aide at Middlebury College's Bread Loaf campus recognized the remote farmhouse's potential for parties. He also knew a young adult willing to buy the central party ingredient, alcohol, at the Hannaford Supermarket. Word spread by mouth and text messages.

Mix 30 or more young people with 150 cans of beer, a few bottles of liquor and some drugs, put them in a museumlike,unheated house in the dead of winter, and the ensuing discussions will not center on the sublime construction of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Some played drinking games, some got sick, some did damage, and all followed that snowy path out, bound together by a secret that could not keep.

Even a frozen meadow sends ripples when disturbed.

Rippling through Middlebury College, which dispatched a cleaning crew to the farmhouse. Kelly Trayah was among those who cleaned up the vomit, repaired the furniture, wiped the yellow dust from the many books, and now he wonders whatever happened to respect for elders. He is 37.

Through the college's classrooms, where the English professor and nature writer John Elder, intimately familiar with the farmhouse and cabin, wonders what possibilities the destruction might provide. Could this violation of Frost lead to a celebration of Frost?

Through Middlebury Union High School, where administrators and teachers are talking about disconnection and, once again, substance abuse. For the rest of the year, the principal, William Lawson, predicted, there will be a lot of Robert Frost quoted.

Finally, through the state police barracks, where Sergeant Hodsden had more than two dozen young people photographed, fingerprinted and cited for unlawful trespass, with a few also cited for unlawful mischief. He cannot shake the indifference of one youth in particular, who asked whether he could use his mug shot on his Facebook page.

In conveying his disgust over this communal breach, the police sergeant employed the Frostian technique of repetition.

They should have known, he said. They should have known.

[Illustration]PHOTOS: A snowy day at the Homer Noble Farm in Vermont, above, which the poet Robert Frost bought in 1939. Below, a view of the interior, which vandals recently made their way into on what Frost might have called a night of dark intent. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANGEL FRANCO/THE NEW YORK TIMES)