A Perfect Choice
In the long journey of life
I have reached
The confusing point
Where the road bifurcates into two.
One, seemingly fascinating, is a pretty path,
With unnatural lights
And smooth shining surface bright;
A number of travelers are there,
Rejoicing their sham songs,
Having no comprehension of
Where the road leads
And what the end point will be.
The other, in option I have,
Is by few feet used;
In mirth they proceed
On their familiar path
Of the grassy ground glimmering
With the shiny moon’s white illumination;
A soothing light warm wind,
Sprinkling several sweet smelling juices,
Lessens the anguish of exhausted bodies.
My inner voice,
From the depth of my heart,
Exhorts me to start
On the second path
That to my destination goes.
Fork in the Road --Michael Tolleson
Robert Frost had been writing poems since high school and had done so professonally since 1894 without attracting much attention and had supported his family by farming for nine years and then teaching for six years. In 1912 he moved to England and publshed his two first volumes of verse, "A Boy's Will" and "North of Boston" in the next two years. He met literary kingmaker Ezra Pound, who became the first American to write a favorable review of Frost's work, and Edward Thomas, a successful writer who turned to poetry himself in 1915 with Frost's encouragement. Frost and Thomas shared a colloquial, rural approach to poetry and became very close, planning to reside next to each other in the US. Frost referred to him as "a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other." After World War I started, Frost returned home and sent Thomas an advance copy of a new poem, "The Road Not Taken," intended as a wry comment about finding meaning in inconsequential decisions, a gentle mocking of Thomas' indecision about which path to follow during their many walks together. Taking it seriously and personally, however, Thomas finally made up and his mind and enlisted in the Artists Rifles in July 1915; he was promoted to second lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, sent to France, and killed in action a few days later at Arras.
ReplyDeleteTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.