I wish I could remember the first day,

First hour, first moment of your meeting me;

If bright or dim the season, it might be

Summer or winter for aught I can say.

So unrecorded did it slip away,

So blind was I to see and to foresee,

So dull to mark the budding of my tree

That would not blossom yet for many a May.

If only I could recollect it! Such

A day of days! I let it come and go

As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand!- Did one but know!

What is this life if, freed from care,

We have no time- except to stare.

No time to savour food and drink,

Or read, or write, or sit and drink.

No time to paint, or play the flute,

or dig, or yarn, or bottle fruit.

No time for politics, or pubs,

Discussion groups, or drama clubs.

No time for charity, or church,

Or local history research.

No time to give the dog a walk,

Or play a parlour game, or talk...

A poor life like this, if we can spare

No time - except to sit and stare.

The size of a cavern for men to crouch in

by fire trickling small;

for demons uttered by name

to crowd like tropical thunder

and crackle against the wall,

he domes the birth of day;

built moving on the river,

shrubless mound on weighty sheen,

a large derisive slope

hammering back each ray,

he floats his quiet hilltop

he sizes up the morning;

a zone of bubbles happens round is head,

streaks of his glitter spear them dead,

breaking the break the day.

A fine froth scums his sides like primitive acid,

birds with sharp beaks fly over him;

he bulges landward

choosing a shelved approach

the water shallows where he wants it to,

pushes in savage rings that smash

high reeds and rock the river. Mud swarms,

mud slimes his paddling belly as he climbs

heavily wagging the water away.

The full ridiculous splendor mobs the stones;

thunder and lightning jostle on his bones.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, 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 travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

And then I pressed the shell

Close to my ear

And listened well.

And straightaway, like a bell,

Came low and clear

The slow, sad murmur of far distant seas,

Whipped by an icy breeze

Upon a shore

Wind-swept and desolate.

It was a sunless strand that never bore

The footprint of a man,

Nor felt the weight

Since time began

of any human quality or stir

Save what the dreary winds and waves incur.

And in the hush of waters was the sound

Of pebbles rolling round;

For ever rolling with a hollow sound:

And bubbling sew-weeds, as the waters go,

Swish to and fro

Their long, cold tentacles of slimy grey:

There was no day;

Nor ever came a night

Setting the stars alight

To wonder at the moon:

Was twilight only and the frightened croon,

Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary wind

And waves that journeyed blind...

And then loosed my ear - Oh, it was sweet

To hear a cart go jolting down the street.