Mood and Tone Activity

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.

All But Blind

by Walter de la Mare

All but blind
In his chambered hole,
Gropes for worms
The four-clawed mole.

All but blind
In the burning day,
The barn owl
Blunders on her way.

And blind as are
These three to me,
So blind to someone
I must be.

Poets to Come 

     by Walt Whitman

POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! Arouse—for you must justify me—you must answer.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,	5
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you, and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.

Ring Out, Wild Bells

from In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1849)

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,    The flying cloud, the frosty light;    The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new,    Ring, happy bells, across the snow:    The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind,    For those that here we see no more,    Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause,    And ancient forms of party strife;    Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care the sin,    The faithless coldness of the times;    Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood,    The civic slander and the spite;    Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease,    Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;    Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free,    The larger heart, the kindlier hand;    Ring out the darkenss of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.