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The Road Not Take 

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 marked 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.

Range-Finding

 The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest Before it stained a single human breast. The stricken flower bent double and so hung. And still the bird revisited her young. A butterfly its fall had dispossessed A moment sought in air his flower of rest, Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung. On the bare upland pasture there had spread O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread And straining cables wet with silver dew. A sudden passing bullet shook it dry. The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly, But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

To E.T.

 I slumbered with your poems on my breast Spread open as I dropped them half-read through Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb To see, if in a dream they brought of you, I might not have the chance I missed in life Through some delay, and call you to your face First solider, and then poet, and then both, Who died a soldier-poet of your race. I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained-- And one thing more that was not then to say: The Victory for what it lost and gained. You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day The war seemed over more for you than me, But now for me than you--the other way. How ever, though, for even me who knew The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine, If I was not speak of it to you And see you pleased once more with words of mine?

A Cliff Dwelling 

There sandy seems the golden sky And golden seems the sandy plain. No habitation meets the eye Unless in the horizon rim, Some halfway up the limestone wall, That spot of black is not a stain Or shadow, but a cavern hole, Where someone used to climb and crawl To rest from his besetting fears. I see the callus on his soul The disappearing last of him And of his race starvation slim, Oh years ago -- ten thousand years.

A Time to Talk

 When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk, I don't stand still and look around On all the hills I haven't hoed, And shout from where I am, 'What is it?' No, not as there is a time talk. I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground, Blade-end up and five feet tall, And plod: I go up to the stone wall For a friendly visit