Bond and Free

Love has earth to which she clings 

With hills and circling arms about— 

Wall within wall to shut fear out. 

But Thought has need of no such things, 

For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

 

On snow and sand and turf, I see 

Where Love has left a printed trace 

With straining in the world’s embrace. 

And such is Love and glad to be. 

But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Carpe Diem

Age saw two quiet children

Go loving by at twilight,

He knew not whether homeward,

Or outward from the village,

Or (chimes were ringing) churchward,

He waited (they were strangers)

Till they were out of hearing

To bid them both be happy.

"Be happy, happy, happy,

And seize the day of pleasure."

The age-long theme is Age's.

'Twas Age imposed on poems

Their gather-roses burden

To warn against the danger

That overtaken lovers

From being overflooded

With happiness should have it.

And yet not know they have it.

But bid life seize the present?

It lives less in the present

Than in the future always,

And less in both together

Than in the past.

The present Is too much for the senses,

Too crowding, too confusing—

Too present to imagine.

Robert Frost

(Picture: Old man's head, Jan Matejko) 

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.

Robert Frost

(Picture: Path through a field of bluebonnets, Robert Julian Onderdonk)

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.

Robert Frost

(Picture: Fire red and gold, Eyvind Earle)