Pastor Tom's Community

Two Roads – Two … But Many Meanings

"And it has made all the difference …"
Ahmed-qORMPbpUqAA-unsplash
 
Ahmed  

For Unsplash+

It is certainly and absolutely, one of my favorite poems since youth, my musical knowledge was deficit in not knowing that one of my favorite choral composers, Randall Thompson, had created a musical setting for it.

 
Frost and his critics would ascertain that it has been misunderstood and  misapplied, but I would ask this: Can that ever be true of poetry?
 
The poet presents the words as a whole and expects them to have a life of their own. She or he never attempts to offer commentary, only the offering itself.
 
Where and how it lands is out of the hands of the poet.
 
After all, there are two choices built into the poem itself.
 
But now, it seems, choices have proliferated. Did Frost have it easy with only two? Or was it a constraint to be so limited? What do you prefer?
 
Choices roads
 
Faruk Tokluoğlu

For Unsplash+
So, here it is, with the text below.
 
Read it.
 
Ponder it.
 
Make some choices.
 
May that make all the difference in your day.
 
The road not taken 2
"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

 


 
tomsims Avatar

Published by

tomsims
I am a pastor and internet citizen in Fresno/Clovis, CA.
Categories:

Leave a comment