Two poems, two directions taken:
The Road Not Taken. Robert Frost. Written 1915
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
War-Time. F.S. Flint, Written 1916. (19 Dec 1885 – 28 Feb 1960)
If I go out of the door,
it will not be
to take the road to the left that leads
past the bovine quiet of houses
brooding over the cud of their daily content,
even though
the tranquillity of their gardens
is a lure that once was stronger;
even though
from privet hedge and mottled laurel
the young green peeps,
and the daffodils
and the yellow and white and purple crocuses
laugh from the smooth mould
of the garden beds
to the upright golden buds of the chestnut trees.
I shall not see
the almond blossom shaming
the soot-black boughs.
But to the right the road will lead me
to greater and greater disquiet;
into the swift rattling noise of the motor-‘busses,
and the dust, the tattered paper—
the detritus of a city—
that swirls in the air behind them.
I will pass the shops where the prices
are judged day by day by the people,
and come to the place where five roads meet
with five tram-routes,
and where amid the din
of the vans, the lorries, the motor-‘busses,
the clangorous tram-cars,
the news is shouted,
and soldiers gather, off-duty.
Here I can feel the heat of Europe’s fever;
and I can make,
as each man makes the beauty of the woman he loves,
no spring and no woman’s beauty,
while that is burning.
It is (or was,) commonly put that Frost’s poem was a deciding factor, or final straw, in his (Edward Thomas’) decision to join the army, but I believe he had already joined when he received a letter with the poem in it. Thomas joined the army in July 1915. Some time later, Frost commented that the poem was aimed at Thomas’ form of indecision. That whichever road he took, at some time he would always have felt that the other ‘Road’ might have been better.
Edward’s decision to join the army was not wanted by his wife Helen, but she thought it inevitable. ‘I had known that the struggle going on in his spirit would end like this, and I had tried to prepare myself for it.’
(Under the Storms Wing, Carcanet, Helen Thomas, ppr1997)
The poem by F S Flint is another ‘road’ poem about ‘stepping forward’. His poem pointedly refusing to take a seemingly comfortable, rural route in the restful countryside in favour of the road that leads to the clamorous city and the ‘fever of Europe’ at war. Written in 1916, maybe a response to Frost’s poem? I leave that to more knowledgable people to answer.
Flint, born in 1885 and a successful poet (styled as an ‘Imagist’) but apparently stopped writing poetry when his wife died in 1920. He did continue translating French writings, however.
poetryparc 