The Road Not Taken

two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry i could not travel both
and be one traveller, long i stood
and looked down 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 kowing 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.

Mending Wall

something there is that doesn't love a wall,
that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
and spills the upper boulders in the sun;
and makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
the work of hunters is another thing:
i have come after them and made repair
where they have left not one stone on a stone.
but they would have the rabbit out of hiding
to please the yelping dogs. the gaps i man,
no one has seen them made or heard them made,
but at spring mending-time we find them there.
i let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
and on a day we meet to walk the line
and set the wall between us once again.
we keep he wall between us as we go.
to each the boulders that have fallen to each.
and some are loaves and some so nearly balls
we have to use a spell to make them balance:
"stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
we wear our fingers rough with handling them.
oh, just another kind of out-door game,
one on a side. it comes so little more,
there where it is we do not need the wall:
he is all pine and i am apple orchard.
my apple trees will never get across
and eat the cones under his pines, i tell him.
he only says, "good fences make good neighbors."
spring is the mischief in me, and i wonder
if i could put a notion in his head.
"why do they make good neighbors? isn't it
where there are cows? but here there are no cows.
befor i built a wall i'd ask to know
what i was walling in or walling out,
and to whom i was like to give offence.
something there is that doesn't love a wall,
that wants it down." i could say "elves" to him,
but it's not the elves exactly, abd i'd rather
he aid it for himself. is ee him there
bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
in each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
he moves in darkness as it seems to me,
not of woods only and the shades of trees.
he will not go behind his father's saying,
and he likes having thought of it so well
he says again "good fences make good neighbors."

by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The World Is Too Much With Us

the world is too much with us; late and soon
getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
little we see in Nature that is ours;
we have given our sordid hearts away, a sordid boon!
this sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
the winds that will be howling at all hours,
and are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
for this, for everything, we are out of tune;
it moves us not. _ Great God! i'd rather be
a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
so might i, standing on this pleasant lea,
have glimpses that would amke me less forlorn;
have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

by WILLIAM BLAKE

The Poison Tree

i was angry with my friend:
i told my wrath, my wrath did end.
i was angry with my foe:
i told it not, my wrath did grow.

and i watered it in fears,
night and morning with my tears;
and i sunned with smiles,
and with soft deceitful wiles.

and it grew both day and night,
till it bore an apple bright;
and my foe beheld it shine,
and he knows that it was mine,

and into my garden stole
when the night had veiled the pole:
in the morning glad i see
my foe outstretched beneath the tree.

London

i wander through each charted street,
near where the charted Thames does flow,
and mark in every face i meet
marks of weakness, marks of woe.

in every cry of every man,
in every infant's cry of fear,
in every voice, in every ban,
the mind-gorged manacles i hear.

how the chimney-sweeper's cry
every blackening church appals;
and the helpless soldier's sigh
runs in blood down palace walls.

but most through midnight streets i hear
how the youthful harlot's curse
blasts the new-born infant's tear,
and blights with plagues the marriage hears.

The Clod & The Pebble

'love seeketh not Itself to please,
'nor for itself hath any care,
'but for another gives its ease,
'and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.'

so sang a little Clod of Clay
trodden with the cattle's feet,
but a pebble of the brook
warbled out these metres meet:

'love seeketh only self to please,
'to bind another to Its delight,
'joy in another's loss of ease,
'and builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.'

by D.H. LAWRENCE

The Best Of School

the blinds are drawn because of the sun,
and the boys and the room in a colourless gloom
of underwater float: bright ripless run
across the walls as the blinds are blown
to let the sunlight in; and i,
as i sit on the shores of the class, alone,
as they write, their round heads busily bowed:
and one after another rouses
his face to look at me,
to ponder very quietly,
as seeing, he does not see.

and then he turns again, with a little, glad
thrill of his work he turns again from me,
having found what he wanted, having got what was to be had.

and very sweet it is, while the sunlight waves
in the ripening morning, to sit alone with the class
and feel the stream of awakening ripple and pass
from me to the boys, whose brightening souls it laves
for this little hour.

this morning, sweet it is
to feel the lads; look light on me,
then back in a swift, bright flutter to work:
each one darting away with his
discovery, like birds that steal and flee.

touch after touch i feel on me
as their eyes glance at me for the grain
of rigour they taste delightedly.

as tendrils reach out yearningly,
slowly rotate till they touch the tree
that they cleave unto, and up which they climb
up to their lives - so they to me.

i feel them cling and cleave to me
as vines going eagerly up;they twine
my life with other leaves, my time
is hidden in theirs, their thrills are mine.

HOME MY LIFE!