These are mine. The crocus flowers. Stubborn and determined to be seen.
She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow. — Robert Graves
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. — Robert Frost
@DaveStevenson Yeah. That’s much less we’ll known one of his.
A Leaf Treader "I have been treading on leaves all day until I am autumn-tired. God knows all the color and forms of leaves I have trodden on and mired. Perhaps I have put forth too much strength and been too fierce from fear. I have safely trodden under foot the leaves of another year.
All summer long they were overhead more lifted up than I; To come to their final place in earth they had to pass me by. All summer long I thought I heard them threatening under their breath, And when they came it seemed with a will to carry me with them to death.
They spoke to the fugitive in my heart as if it were leaves to leaf; They tapped at my eyelids and touched my lips with an invitation to grief. But it was no reason I had to go because they had to go. Now up, my knee, to keep on top of another year of snow."
Growth? Change? A new note? Let us tread together. — Robert Frost
@JustGoneNow I don't know. I've never really thought about it. I was lucky enough to find a book of his poems at a yard sale one day and I grabbed it in a heartbeat.
@DaveStevenson Most people, I believe think the “The Road Not Taken” to be a straightforward and sentimental celebration of a persons rash individualism and determination of spirit as they forge new roads where none were before.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
From that verse it would seem that the author took the road less traveled by and it has positively benefited his life over taking a more well trodden path but that Is contradicted by other lines.
“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;”
From this part, you might think one was less trodden, except for the next line when the traveler explains he was really just trying to find a reason to take one road over the other and that both roads actually seemed to be actually equally traveled upon.
“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.”
So with this in mind, the traveler takes one, and consoles himself that he’ll be back again and see where the other road leads, before admitting that he’s fooling himself once again, like convincing himself that one path was less traveled.
“Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”
In the end, he states the most famous part, including two key lines that are often omitted.
“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.”
He was very clear that the two roads were identical with no real reason to take one over the other, and later in life he knew he’d fooled himself, by remembering that one road was “less traveled by” and that it had influenced his decision, when in fact he really decided on a whim, because it’s the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves that our current paths are completely the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). I don’t believe the poem is a salute to rugged individualism. I think it’s about the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our lives but people mostly get it wrong.
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. — Robert Frost
@DaveStevenson The poem was meant as a friendly, humorous jab to his friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas in England. Frost and Thomas took to walks through the English countryside to look for wild flowers and spot birds, and also discuss topics from politics and the war, to poetry and their wives, and everything in between.
Frost noticed during their random walking about, frequently a choice had to be made over a path to take. Inevitably one would be chosen for one reason or another and after their walks, Thomas would sometimes kick himself for not taking the other path if their walk failed to result in the sighting of anything that was interesting.
