Lord Byron

Valerie Ashley — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:47:00 +0000

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”

I saw this excerpt from a poem by Lord Byron on a neat blog I visited today. It pretty much sums up how I feel about Nature. Picture is of a butterfly from my garden.

The Road Not Taken

Valerie Ashley — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:14:00 +0000

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.

This has always been a favorite poem of mine, where Robert Frost speaks to the value of independence and personal freedom. I have always wished for a simpler time in which to live, and, as I grow older find myself creating just that.
This picture is in Brownfield, Maine where I go each year to relax, watch birds and sculpt.

Elysian Field Originals » poetry

Lord Byron

The Road Not Taken