Poetry

These are some of my favorite poems. Top of the list is "Excelsior" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Close second is "The City of the End of Things" by Archibald Lampman. (much too long to post here but absolutely fabulous, hence the link.) And interestingly, I love this poem "Fatima" which seems so different than anything Alfred, Lord Tennyson ever wrote. "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer. I think W.B Yeats should be here just because of "When You Are Old".

But today I have Robert Frost on my mind:

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.

And since they are so very short, I am going to include First Fig and Second Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-

It gives a lovely light!

Second Fig

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand;

Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Why do I not include some medieval poem to this list? Because most of the best ones involve swords and monsters and war and I am not in a martial mood today.