Carl Sandburg – Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.   

Shovel them under and let me work—   

            I am the grass; I cover all.   

   

And pile them high at Gettysburg   

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. 

Shovel them under and let me work.   

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:   

            What place is this?   

            Where are we now?   

   

            I am the grass. 

            Let me work.

Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken

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.

Emily Dickinson – There is no Frigate like a Book (Poem 1286)

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –

Emily Dickinson – Tell all the truth but tell it slant (Poem 1263)

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Edgar Allan Poe – To F

Beloved! amid the earnest woes

That crowd around my earthly path-

(Drear path, alas! where grows

Not even one lonely rose)-

My soul at least a solace hath

In dreams of thee, and therein knows

An Eden of bland repose.

And thus thy memory is to me

Like some enchanted far-off isle

In some tumultuous sea-

Some ocean throbbing far and free

With storms- but where meanwhile

Serenest skies continually

Just o'er that one bright island smile.