Erode... Naught Taken, mused by Robert Frost Options

[JustDaniel]

Erode... Naught Taken

I have walked two roads as I’ve scribbled verse;
they converge as one in yon yellowed wood.
If I’d chosen the other, would I be the worse?
Have I looked down the one as far as I could?
I’d spent precious time in the undergrowth
of the wanderlust path, and I got nowhere,
so I reasoned I’d rhyme, taking something of both
to discover perchance what each sought to share.
Some traveler friends bid farewell as I strode,
but cautiously, marching a shadowy path
to somewhere or other past empty abodes —
encountered cold shoulders… occasional wrath.

passers-by poked fun
throughout a fallen winter;
still life sprang anew

two trails
diverged from woods
in pungent yellow streams;
so I set a new course through trees
relieved


© MLee Dickens’son 09 Feb 2006


a musing from Robert Frost's

The Road Not Taken

[Merlin]

Hi JD,

As promised, I'm popping back in with some thoughts on this 2-trails.

I don't wish to do a line-by-line, rather some general thoughts. They will, of course, be my personal biases, so they need not fit your bill by any means.

You've chosen to do a take-off on RF, very obviously. There's always a danger in pulling that off effectively. Did you?

It's very personal that I discourage first person writing. My biggest reason is that once begun, one can hardly get away from the aye-aye-aye syndrome - you managed 11 for the first 12 lines. That scores too high for me; anything over 25% gets an eyeyeye from me.

Changing the form-style is something that can be very effective. Usually it is done for cause, as in a different speaker entering the scene, or similar change. Tennyson's The Brook ranks high among my favorites, when he opens with "Here by this brook we parted," and later goes to the Brook's reply "I come from haunts of coot and hern," creating his own reminiscing with the babble of the brook in between.
I'm not entirely sure that the Oriental forms placed near the end are effective; perhaps putting a hiccup up in the tree section to describe the golden leaf might do, and then continue with the opening form. That's just a thought, and perhaps playing around with different combinations may bring a unique branch. BTW, there are divergent thoughts as to why the woods are yellow in RF's - fall & aspens; spring & daffodils.

Finally, I'm not wild about the 2 questions in LL 3 & 4. I don't know why you ask if it could be worse - is the chosen one so bad? Here, my comment contains 2 points - the closeness of 2 questions, and the wording choice of the one.

There you have it.

I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley. Tennyson

Merlin

ps - It pleases me that the trees are relieved, but the streams are running yellow. Hmmm.