ENG-175 FInal Poetry
If I can stop one heart from breaking IF I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin 5 Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
Author: Emily Dickinson IF she can stop one heart from breaking, she will not dwell on the past b/c then her life will have meaning She wants to help something small and helpless, help someone get back on her feet
Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
Author: Robert Frost Casual in tone but questions the afterlife and what happens after a person dies Could end with a world of fire or a world of ice Is the afterlife filled with desire or hate/fear
I'm Nobody! Who are you? I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody - too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know! How dreary - to be - Somebody! How public - like a Frog - To tell one's name - the livelong June - To an admiring Bog!
Author: Emily Dickinson Similar to her life- always lived in seculsion and loneliness Wants a partner to be lonely with She isn't ashamed to be the way she is, she understands her loneliness and is happy about it
Because I Could Not Stop For Death Because I could not stop for Death - He kindly stopped for me - The Carriage held but just Ourselves - And Immortality. We slowly drove - He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility - We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess - in the Ring - We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain - We passed the Setting Sun - Or rather - He passed us - The Dews drew quivering and chill - For only Gossamer, my Gown - My Tippet - only Tulle - We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground - The Roof was scarcely visible - The Cornice - in the Ground - Since then - 'tis Centuries - and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity -
Author Emily Dickinson Theme: immortality in the afterlife - entire poem is told centuries in the past, happier in the afterlife Describes death as kindecause
America Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth. Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate, Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
Author: Claude McKay "America" is tempered with the realizations that come with time. It is a ferocious assault against his adopted country for the many ways it which systematically organizes to dehumanize an entire race. At the same time, however, this oppression also serves to harden his soul and strengthen his resolve to overcome his oppressors.
If we must die If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Author: Claude McKay Sonnet political protest against racial oppression. Stimulated by a series of violent and blood racial conflicts producing rioting and police brutality, "If We Must Die" defiantly urges oppressed blacks to stand up and fight back against white oppressors. Beneath the call for rebellion is a reminder of the cherished values of insurrection in America against those that would deny freedom and undermine one's self-respect
The Lynching His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven. His father, by the cruelest way of pain, Had bidden him to his bosom once again; The awful sin remained still unforgiven. All night a bright and solitary star (Perchance the one that ever guided him, Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim) Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char. Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view The ghastly body swaying in the sun: The women thronged to look, but never a one Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue; And little lads, lynchers that were to be, Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.
Author: Claude Mckay Perhaps because he is looking back to a more distant place in history—the long history of lynching following Reconstruction—rather than immediate headlines, the outrage here is tempered by a spiritual metaphor. Once again adopting his preferred sonnet form, the blacks who are lynched and murdered are given a symbolic weight well beyond mere social outrage: they are depicted as sacrificial Christ figures.
Old England I've a longin' in me dept's of heart dat I can conquer not, 'Tis a wish dat I've been havin' from since I could form a t'o't, 'Tis to sail athwart the ocean an' to hear de billows roar, When dem ride aroun' de steamer, when dem beat on England's shore. Just to view de homeland England, in de streets of London walk, An' to see de famous sights dem 'bouten which dere's so much talk, An' to watch de fact'ry chimneys pourin' smoke up to de sky, An' to see de matches-children, dat I hear 'bout, passin' by. I would see Saint Paul's Cathedral, an' would hear some of de great Learnin' comin' from de bishops, preachin' relics of old fait'; I would ope me mout' wid wonder at de massive organ soun', An' would 'train me eyes to see de beauty lyin' all aroun'. [...] An' dese places dat I sing of now shall afterwards impart All deir solemn sacred beauty to a weary searchin' heart; So I'll rest glad an' contented in me min' for evermore, When I sail across de ocean back to my own native shore.
Author: Claude Mckay Story about the British control over the Jamaicans Use vernacular to emphasis his Jamaican ethnicity Finds beauty in Religion Wants to be home
Heritage What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang? One three centuries removed From the scenes his fathers loved, Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, What is Africa to me? So I lie, who all day long Want no sound except the song Sung by wild barbaric birds Goading massive jungle herds, Juggernauts of flesh that pass Trampling tall defiant grass Where young forest lovers lie, Plighting troth beneath the sky. So I lie, who always hear, Though I cram against my ear Both my thumbs, and keep them there, Great drums throbbing through the air. So I lie, whose fount of pride, Dear distress, and joy allied, Is my somber flesh and skin, With the dark blood dammed within Like great pulsing tides of wine That, I fear, must burst the fine Channels of the chafing net Where they surge and foam and fret.
Author: Countee Cullen He starts off by describing the physical richness of the continent, with its "Copper sun" and "scarlet sea." He goes on to compare its beauty to "Eden." However, the poem starts harboring more negative connotations of Africa, as it is filled with "wild barbaric birds." It is clear that the Speaker is in conflict with his true heritage and what is expected of him from a white person's perspective. The speaker is worried that his true feelings of inherent pride of his culture will "surge and foam" from his head. He " must forget" the true meaning of "black" Africa and succumb to the white perspective
Incident Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee; I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "******." I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember.
Author: Countee Cullen The poem starts off with the Speaker reflecting on a happy moment he had in Baltimore as he was riding the bike. He is initially in a very happy mood with a "head-filled with glee" and smiles at a boy who is "no whit bigger" than him and also a passenger on the bus. He expects the boy to respond positively, but instead the boy sticks out his "tongue" and calls him a "Nibberr." This insult upsets the Speaker so much that when he now reflects on Baltimore as a whole, he only ever recalls that moment.
There is no Frigate like a Book There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away, Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry - This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll - How frugal is the Chariot That bears a Human soul.
Author: Emily Dickinson Books can help people escape from depression, helps ppl in poverty shows power of reading them through comparing it with all kinds of characters are affected around the world by books
Hope is thing with feathers "Hope" is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I've heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.
Author: Emily Dickinson Describes a bird that perches in the soul singing and giving the narrator a sweet feeling of hope. It always plays and would require a major storm in order to stop, it the whole time saying nothing.
Success is counted sweetest Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition, So clear, of victory! As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear!
Author: Emily Dickinson Ppl who never succeed place the highest value on success Ppl of a victorious army cannot define victory as well as the defeated
I died for beauty I died for Beauty - but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room - He questioned softly "Why I failed"? "For Beauty", I replied - "And I - for Truth - Themself are One - We Bretheren, are", He said - And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night - We talked between the Rooms - Until the Moss had reached our lips - And covered up - Our names -
Author: Emily Dickinson Speaker says she died for beauty, not long after in her tomb before a man played in the tomb next to her, he says they died for truth, they talk and agree that they died for the same reason, they ended up talking for eternity
My life closed twice before it's close My life closed twice before its close— It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.
Author: Emily Dickinson The two deaths she is referring to is the death of a loved one and the second one is her imagining her own death She's unsure if there's an afterlife, very hard concept for her to grasp
Death Sets a Thing Signifigant DEATH sets a thing significant The eye had hurried by, Except a perished creature Entreat us tenderly To ponder little workmanships 5 In crayon or in wool, With "This was last her fingers did," Industrious until The thimble weighed too heavy, The stitches stopped themselves, 10 And then 't was put among the dust Upon the closet shelves. A book I have, a friend gave, Whose pencil, here and there, Had notched the place that pleased him,— 15 At rest his fingers are. Now, when I read, I read not, For interrupting tears Obliterate the etchings Too costly for repairs.
Author: Emily Dickinson Theme: how people react to the death of a loved one Stanza 1: insignificante things suddenly become meaningful Stanza 4: Finding certain items bring ppl comfort after death Stanza 5: Grief Stricken, cannot read through her tears Memories can comfort and torment
This is my letter to the world This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me,-- The simple news that Nature told, With tender majesty. Her message is committed To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen, Judge tenderly of me!
Author: Emily Dickinson In "This is my letter to the World", Nature is personified as being able to tell something with "simple news that Nature told". However, the narrator cannot see what was told. But, she still tells the countrymen not to judge her (the narrator) quickly.
I, Too I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.
Author: Langston Hughes He is the "darker brother" who is sent to eat in the kitchen when there are guests visiting. However, he does laugh and he eats well and grows bigger and stronger. Tomorrow, he will sit at the table when the guests come, and no one will dare to tell him to eat in the kitchen. They will see his beauty and be ashamed, for, as he claims, "I, too, am America." Hughes is expressing his belief that African Americans are a valuable part of the country's population and that he foresees a racially equal society in the near future.
Harlem What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
Author: Langston Hughes The speaker wonders what happens to a deferred dream. He wonders if it dries up like a raisin in the sun, or if it oozes like a wound and then runs. It might smell like rotten meat or develop a sugary crust. It might just sag like a "heavy load," or it might explode. the limitations of the American Dream for African Americans. America was still racially segregated. African Americans were saddled with the legacy of slavery, which essentially rendered them second-class citizens in the eyes of the law, particularly in the South.
The Negro Speaks of Rivers I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Author: Langston Hughes the first line by telling us that he has known rivers and that his soul has come to be as deep as a river. Then he explains to us just how that transformation took place. Rivers can be ugly and pretty, comparison of the souls to rivers In this way, our speaker comes to represent a community of individuals, and the rivers become a metaphor for the history, spirit, and wisdom of Africans and African-Americans.
Homesick Blues De railroad bridge's A sad song in de air. De railroad bridge's A sad song in de air. Ever time de trains pass I wants to go somewhere. I went down to de station. Ma heart was in ma mouth. Went down to de statin. Heart was in ma mouth. Lookin' for a box car To roll me to de South. Homesick blues, Lawd, 'S a terrible thing to have. Homesick blues is A terrible thing to have. To keep from cryin' I opens ma mouth an' laughs.
Author: Langston Hughs Going away from home can take a mental toll on someones heart it can wear one down to desperation, anxiety, depression and insanity
Afro-American Fragment So long, So far away Is Africa. Not even memories alive Save those that history books create, Save those that songs Beat back into the blood- Beat out of blood with words sad-sung In strange un-Negro tongue- So long, So far away Is Africa. Subdued and time-lost Are the drums-and yet Through some vast mist of race There comes this song I do not understand, This song of atavistic land, Of bitter yearnings lost Without a place- So long, So far away Is Africa's Dark face.
Author: Langston Hughs He ism't as involved with African American culture as he used to be The songs he is referring to is the songs which the slaves would sing Reptition helps show how distant he feels from his culture
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
Author: Robert Frost Speaker is stopping in the woods while the snow is coming down, is overcome with it's beauty and is tempted to stay longer, but has other obligations and is required to leave, shows how humans don't appreciate the beauty in nature enough
Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
Author: Robert Frost Focuses on the inevitability of loss and tragedy Humans, nature, time and all items are all subject to change
Acquianted with the Night I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.
Author: Robert Frost Literal Meaning: A man is aimlessly walking on foot through the streets of a city at night. Narrorator is looking back on his life with detachment - feelings of depression, despair and loneliness
After Apple Picking My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep.
Author: Robert Frost Literal Meaning: a person thinking aloud and telling a story of how his sleep will be affected by the apple harvest Explores the relationship of humans and nature, expressing the physical and mental consequences the man will endure Tree and apple is biblical allusion to Eve
Two Tramps in Mud Time Out of the mud two strangers came And caught me splitting wood in the yard, And one of them put me off my aim By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!" I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind And let the other go on a way. I knew pretty well what he had in mind: He wanted to take my job for pay. Good blocks of oak it was I split, As large around as the chopping block; And every piece I squarely hit Fell splinterless as a cloven rock. The blows that a life of self-control Spares to strike for the common good, That day, giving a loose my soul, I spent on the unimportant wood. The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March. A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume, His song so pitched as not to excite A single flower as yet to bloom. It is snowing a flake; and he half knew Winter was only playing possum. Except in color he isn't blue, But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom. The water for which we may have to look In summertime with a witching wand, In every wheelrut's now a brook, In every print of a hoof a pond. Be glad of water, but don't forget The lurking frost in the earth beneath That will steal forth after the sun is set And show on the water its crystal teeth. The time when most I loved my task The two must make me love it more By coming with what they came to ask. You'd think I never had felt before The weight of an ax-head poised aloft, The grip of earth on outspread feet, The life of muscles rocking soft And smooth and moist in vernal heat. Out of the wood two hulking tramps (From sleeping God knows where last night, But not long since in the lumber camps). They thought all chopping was theirs of right. Men of the woods and lumberjacks, They judged me by their appropriate tool. Except as a fellow handled an ax They had no way of knowing a fool. Nothing on either side was said. They knew they had but to stay their stay And all their logic would fill my head: As that I had no right to play With what was another man's work for gain. My right might be love but theirs was need. And where the two exist in twain Theirs was the better right--agreed. But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the future's sakes.
Author: Robert Frost Narrorator lives in a time when money paid jobs are hard to come by, the narrator is splitting his wood when he meets two unemployed lumberjacks, they want to do the work and get paid but the narrator offers a philosophical approach as to why he'll do the job on his own.
Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.
Author: Robert Frost Sonnet which explores that nature and the whole universe was designed by a malevolent intelligence IS there a godly presence, and if there is then why would he create darkness and evil
Mending Wall Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Author: Robert Frost His neighbor says that "good fences make good neighbors." The speaker becomes a bit mischievous in the spring weather, and wonders if he can try to make his neighbor reconsider the wall. His neighbor looks like a menacing caveman as he puts a rock into the wall, and repeats, "Good fences makes good neighbors." Theme is isolation and the neighbor is trapped in the past
Birches When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows— Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Author: Robert Frost Takes place in the woods, describes how an ice storm is bending the branches of a birch tree and the boy is swinging on the branches The narrator is exploring his relationship to the truth Idea of human existence and the limits humans can go as a creative, loving being
The Road Not Taken Two 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.
Author: Robert Frost; about someone faced with a choice(fork in the road) and having to choose the right decision He made the less popular decision in his past and is unsure how he feels about this from an emotional standpoint
