Greetings from France! GCP is on the road this week, with limited access to the blog, but we don’t want to miss the chance to share a Thoughtful Thursday. Today’s Thoughtful Thursday celebrates vacations, with poems from three very well-known American poets. From Robert Frost comes “The Road Less Traveled”, which we include here to reflect on the joys of following new paths. Robert Louis Stevenson commiserates with all of the young boys (and girls) who complain about having to go to bed while the sun is still up in the summertime, and Mark Twain offers a sweet lullaby for the end of a lovely summer day. Enjoy.
The Road Less Traveled
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 marked 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.
Robert Frost
Bed in Summer
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
Robert Louis Stevenson
Warm Summer Sun
Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.
Mark Twain
