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.

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

   Someone had blundered.

   Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

   Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

   Rode the six hundred.

IV

Flashed all their sabres bare,

Flashed as they turned in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

   All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre stroke

   Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not

   Not the six hundred.

V

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

   Left of six hundred.

VI

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

   All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

   Noble six hundred!

     My being is attuned to thee.

Thou settest all my words a-wing,

     And meltest me to melody.

Thou art my life, by thee I live,

     From thee proceed the joys I know;

Sweetheart, thy hand has power to give

     The meed of love—the cup of woe.

Thou art my love, by thee I lead

     My soul the paths of light along,

From vale to vale, from mead to mead,

     And home it in the hills of song.

My song, my soul, my life, my all,

     Why need I pray or make my plea,

Since my petition cannot fall;

     For I’m already one with thee!

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Hanging like curtains all the horizon round, Or overhead in heavy stillness sail;

So still is day, it seems like night profound;

Scarce by the city's din the air is stirred, And dull and deadened comes its every sound;

The cock's shrill, piercing voice subdued is heard, By the thick folds of muffling vapors drowned.

Dissolved in mists the hills and trees appear, Their outlines lost and blended with the sky;

And well-known objects, that to all are near,

No longer seem familiar to the eye, But with fantastic forms they mock the sight, As when we grope amid the gloom of night.

By Marcus B. Christian

I ply with all the cunning of my art

This little thing, and with consummate care

I fashion it—so that when I depart,

Those who come after me shall find it fair

And beautiful. It must be free of flaws—

Pointing no laborings of weary hands;

And there must be no flouting of the laws

Of beauty—as the artist understands.

Through passion, yearnings infinite—yet dumb—

I lift you from the depths of my own mind

And gild you with my soul’s white heat to plumb

The souls of future men. I leave behind

This thing that in return this solace gives:

“He who creates true beauty ever lives.”

taken them in, but white clouds shade other white ones gray, had I noticed that: and though I’ve followed the leaves of many falls, have I spent time with
the wire vines left when frost’s red dyes strip the leaves

away: is more missing than was never enough: I’m sure many of love’s kinds absolve and heal, but were they passing
rapids or welling stirs: I suppose I haven’t done and seen enough yet to go, and, anyway, it may be way on on the way

before one picks up the track of the sufficient, the world-round reach, spirit deep, easing and all, not just mind
answering itself but mind and things apprehended at once
as one, all giving all way, not a scrap of question holding back.

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep

his house is in the village though

he will not see me stopping here

to watch his woods fill up with snow

My little horse must think it queer

to stop without a farmhouse near

between the woods and frozen lake

the darkest evening of the year

He gives his harness bells a shake

to ask if there is some mistake

the only other sounds the sweep

of easy wind and downy flake

The woods are lovely dark and deep

but i have promises to keep

and miles to go before i sleep

and miles to go before i sleep.

She sat me in her parlor, distracted me with trinkets,
milky glass birds and fish, distracting trinkets.
She said my mother would be fine, but did she think it?

The world was a blur of crystal wings and fins.
My tears were casked in crystal, wings and fins.
She was the first of many lady-friends.

The tree shadows shortened, she brought me a drink of water.
Morning matured, she brought me a glass of water.
I drank it so fast, she went and brought another.

I kept looking out the window, she didn’t ask me what for.
I watched out that window, she didn’t ask what for.
The seconds broke off and lay there on the floor.

I imagined my mother’s route, as far as I could.
Her long morning walk, followed as far as I could.
Nothing I could do would do any good.

Suffer the little children, and forbid them not.
Christ said suffer the little children, and forbid them not.
Said love thy neighbor, sometimes she’s all you got.

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

whispering my name. I was born to rainwater and lye;

I was born across the river where I

was borrowed with clothespins, a harrow tooth,

broadsides sewn in my shoes. I returned, though

it please you, through no fault of my own,

pockets filled with coffee grounds and eggshells.

I was born still and superstitious; I bore an unexpected burden.

I gave birth, I gave blessing, I gave rise to suspicion.

I was born abandoned outdoors in the heat-shaped air,

air drifting like spirits and old windows.

I was born a fraction and a cipher and a ledger entry;

I was an index of first lines when I was born.

I was born waist-deep stubborn in the water crying

                              ain’t I a woman and a brother I was born

to this hall of mirrors, this horror story I was

born with a prologue of references, pursued

by mosquitoes and thieves, I was born passing

off the problem of the twentieth century: I was born.

I read minds before I could read fishes and loaves;

I walked a piece of the way alone before I was born.

Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg,

He, who once warred on Saratoga’s plains,

Sits musing o’er his scars, and wooden leg.

Remembering still the toil of former days,

To other hands he sees his earnings paid;--

They share the due reward—he feeds on praise.

Lost in the abyss of want, misfortune’s shade.

Far, far from domes where splendid tapers glare,

‘Tis his from dear bought peace no wealth to win,

Removed alike from courtly cringing ‘squires,

The great-man’s Levee, and the proud man’s grin.

Sold are those arms which once on Britons blazed,

When, flushed with conquest, to the charge they came;

That power repelled, and Freedom’s fabrick raised,

She leaves her soldier—famine and a name!

In icy fields.

Is water flowing in the tank?

Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?

(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?

Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,

follower or leader.)

O lead them to a warm corner,

little ones toward bulkier bodies.

Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.

Another frigid night swooping down — 

Aren’t you worried about them? I ask my friend,

who lives by herself on the ranch of goats,

far from here near the town of Ozona.

She shrugs, “Not really,

they know what to do. They’re goats.”

By Khadijah Queen

In winter traffic, fog of midday

shoves toward our machines—snow eclipses

the mountainscapes

I drive toward, keeping time against

the urge to quit moving. I refuse to not

know how not to, wrestling

out loud to music, as hovering me—automatic

engine, watching miles of sky on the fall—loves such

undoing, secretly, adding fuel to

what undoes the ozone, the endless nothing

manifested as sinkholes under permafrost.

Refusal, indecision—an arctic

undoing of us, interrupting cascades—

icy existences. I cannot drive through.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

The Ocean has its silent caves,

Deep, quiet, and alone;

Though there be fury on the waves,

Beneath them there is none.

The awful spirits of the deep

Hold their communion there;

And there are those for whom we weep,

The young, the bright, the fair.

Calmly the wearied seamen rest

Beneath their own blue sea.

The ocean solitudes are blest,

For there is purity.

The earth has guilt, the earth has care,

Unquiet are its graves;

But peaceful sleep is ever there,

Beneath the dark blue waves.

By Christina Rossetti

“Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing
   On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”
“The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,
   We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.”

So they two went together in glowing August weather,
   The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to dote on, her swift feet seemed to float on
   The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.

“Oh what is that in heaven where gray cloud-flakes are seven,
   Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?”
“Oh that’s a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,
   An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.”

“Oh what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
   Their scent comes rich and sickly?”—“A scaled and hooded worm.”
“Oh what’s that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?”
   “Oh that’s a thin dead body which waits the eternal term.”

“Turn again, O my sweetest,—turn again, false and fleetest:
   This beaten way thou beatest I fear is hell’s own track.”
“Nay, too steep for hill-mounting; nay, too late for cost-counting:
   This downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.”

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over

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By Naomi Shihab Nye

In icy fields.

Is water flowing in the tank?

Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?

(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?

Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,

follower or leader.)

O lead them to a warm corner,

little ones toward bulkier bodies.

Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.

Another frigid night swooping down — 

Aren’t you worried about them? I ask my friend,

who lives by herself on the ranch of goats,

far from here near the town of Ozona.

She shrugs, “Not really,

they know what to do. They’re goats.”

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire

By Edward Thomas

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea

Birds there, or hardly any.

I did not miss them, I do not remember

Missing them, or thinking it uncanny.

The beach so-called was a blinding splinter of limestone,

A quarry outraged by hulls.

We took pleasure in that: the emptiness, the hardness

Of the light, the silence, and the water’s stillness.

But this was the setting for one of our murderous scenes.

This hurt, and goes on hurting:

The venomous soft jelly, the undersides.

We could stand the world if it were hard all over.

Listening in Deep Space

By Diane Thiel:

We’ve always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.

We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers with spirit and perseverance
mapping the unknown. We listen
through large arrays adjusted eagerly

to hear the news that we are not alone.
Considering the history at home,
in houses, across continents, oceans,
even in quests armed with good intentions,
what one seeker has done to another—
what will we do when we find each other?

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By Kay Ryan

Everything contains some   
silence. Noise gets
its zest from the
small shark’s-tooth
shaped fragments
of rest angled
in it. An hour   
of city holds maybe   
a minute of these   
remnants of a time   
when silence reigned,   
compact and dangerous   
as a shark. Sometimes   
a bit of a tail   
or fin can still   
be sensed in parks.

By Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night. 

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

 I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane. 

I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

 I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry 

Came over houses from another street, 

But not to call me back or say good-bye; 

And further still at an unearthly height, 

One luminary clock against the sky 

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Your brain cells are soaked with salt;
connections fail unexpectedly and often.
Ask for help.
Accept help.

Read your grief like the daily newspaper:
headlines may have information you need.
Scream. Drop-kick the garbage can across the street.

Don’t feel guilty if you have a good time.
Don’t act as if you haven’t been hit by a Mack Truck.
Do things a little differently
but don’t make a lot of changes.
Revel in contradiction.

Talk to the person who died.
Give her a piece of your mind.

Try to touch someone at least once a day.
Approach grief with determination.
Pretend the finish line doesn’t keep receding.
Lean into the pain.
You can’t outrun it.

Think of   a sheep
knitting a sweater;
think of   your life
getting better and better.

Think of   your cat
asleep in a tree;
think of   that spot
where you once skinned your knee.

Think of   a bird
that stands in your palm.
Try to remember
the Twenty-first Psalm.

Think of   a big pink horse
galloping south;
think of   a fly, and
close your mouth.

If   you feel thirsty, then
drink from your cup.
The birds will keep singing
until they wake up.

The sleeper watched the people at the waterless wilderness’ edge;   
The wilderness was made of granite, of thorn, of death,   
It was the goat which lightened the people praying.
The goat went out with sin on its sunken head.

On the sleeper’s midnight and the smaller after hours   
From above below elsewhere there shone the animals   
Through the circular dark; the cock appeared in light   
Crying three times, for tears for tears for tears.

High in the frozen tree the sparrow sat. At three o’clock   
The luminous thunder of its fall fractured the earth.   
The somber serpent looped its coils to write
In scales the slow snake-music of the red ripe globe.

To the sleeper, alone, the animals came and shone,   
The darkness whirled but silent shone the animals.   
Just before dawn the dove flew out of the dark
Flying with green in her beak; the dove also had come.

Calmly the wearied seamen rest
Beneath their own blue sea.
The ocean solitudes are blest,
For there is purity.

The earth has guilt, the earth has care,
Unquiet are its graves;
But peaceful sleep is ever there,
Beneath the dark blue waves.

By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

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.

Time should hold no meaning
for him yet. You don’t learn
how to play; you forget. But he knows a while
well, and longs for the clang of the bell.

A bell is a room of nothing.
No, a dome with a hidden swing — 
a will, a sway, a tone, a peal,
the beginning of song. The wild
crowd nears, passes, laughing.
Here is the sound of the bell.

And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

Then with cracked hands that ached

From labor in the weekday weather made

Banked fires blazed. No one ever thanked him

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering breaking,

When the rooms were warm he’d call,

And slowly I would rise and dress,

Fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

Who had driven me out the cold

And polished my hood shoes as well.

What did I know? What did I know?

Of loves austere and lonely offices?

it is hard to see over heads in the crowd?

If everyone else seems smarter

but you need your own secret?

If mystery was never your friend?

If one way could satisfy

the infinite heart of the heavens?

If you liked the king on his golden throne

more than the villagers carrying baskets of lemons?

If you wanted to be sure

his guards would admit you to the party?

            The boy with the broken pencil

            scrapes his little knife against the lead

            turning and turning it as a point

            emerges from the wood again

            If he would believe his life is like that

            he would not follow his father into war

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Cornelius Eady

Off go the crows from the roof.
The crows can’t hold on.
They might as well
Be perched on an oil slick.

Such an awkward dance,
These gentlemen
In their spottled-black coats.
Such a tipsy dance,

As if they didn’t know where they were.
Such a humorous dance,
As they try to set things right,
As the wind reduces them.

Such a sorrowful dance.
How embarrassing is love
When it goes wrong

In front of everyone.

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
      And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
      When I put out to sea,

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
      Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
      Turns again home.

   Twilight and evening bell,
      And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
      When I embark;

   For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
      The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
      When I have crost the bar.