Thought for Thursday

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, 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 travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

---Published in 1916 

in the Collection,

 Mountain Interval

Robert Frost-1916

Born March 26, 1871

Died January 29, 1963

Thoughts for Thursday

First Day of Spring

The Daffodils

William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

  A host, of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

  And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

  Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

  Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

  Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;

A poet could not but be gay 

  In such a jocund company.

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought

  What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft, when on my couch I lie

  In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

  Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

  And dances with the daffodils.

Born April 7, 1770
Died April 23, 1850

From One Hundred and One Famous Poems
 with a Prose Supplement
An Anthology Compiled by Roy J. Cook
Revised Edition, published in 1958
by The Reilly & Lee Co. Publishers, Chicago

Thought for Thursday

The House by the 

Side of the Road

Sam Walter Foss

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn 
  In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars.,that dwell apart,
  In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
  Where highways never ran---
But let me live by the side of the road
  and be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
  Where the race of men go by---
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
  As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
  Or hurl the cynic's ban---
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
  And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road,
  By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
 The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears,
  Both parts of an infinite plan---

Let me live in a house by the side of the road

  And be a friend to man.

Mixed Media Art by Lynne Grant-Tull

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
  And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
  And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
  And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
  Like a man who dwells alone.

Born June 19, 1858
Died February 26, 1911

From One Hundred and One Famous Poems
 with a Prose Supplement
An Anthology Compiled by Roy J. Cook
Revised Edition, published in 1958
by The Reilly & Lee Co. Publishers, Chicago