Poetry! “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

I seem to post a lot of Robert Frost, but that's not a bad thing. I try to live by the last lines of this poem.

Interestingly, the last lines were also used on the opening pages of Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

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.

Poetry: “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickenson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

(i have nothing to say here, this poem really says it all.)

Poetry! “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost

It's Robert Frost time again, and an even shorter poem. This one reminds me of the fleetingness of life, and of the New Found Glory album by the same name.

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Poetry Spotlight! More Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream With In A Dream”

You can never have enough Edgar Allan Poe-try, right?

A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Poetry Spotlight! “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

Okay, everyone knows this one, but I'm giving it a post anyway because I love it to pieces. This is my favourite poem of all time, and I have a feeling it may always be that way.

Above, there's a video of "The Raven", an upcoming fictionalised movie where Edgar Allan Poe chases a serial killer.

"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more."

Poetry Spotlight! “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

A dark and winter-y poem today by the fittingly named Robert Frost. The last verse of this poems makes me think both about suicide and about humanity's pressing urge to keep living and breathing and achieving.

Readers - what does this poem mean to you?

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST

Poetry Spotlight! T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”

This is a long poem, but a great one that I reference far too often for my own good. It's also seasonal, because Guy Fawkes night is tomorrow!

Doctor Who is responsible for getting me hooked on this poem, which I only knew vaguely before watching The Lazarus Experiement. Some notes about the story behind the poem are here, and it's interesting to see how often the poem appears in popular culture.

All the acts lead up to an excellent poem, but the final act is most peoples favourite - mine too, it just captures so much emotion so well.