lines from horace

i found these lines back when i was in college while reading old issues of the ny times review of books at the up main lib. they struck me then and they still remain meaningful to me now. horace wrote them in 13 BCE.

tell me my ligurinus

why do these reluctant flowing tears

surprise these dry cheeks

and my fluent tongue stumble

in unbecoming silences

among syllables

in dreams at night i hold you in my arms

or toil behind your flight across the martian field

or chase through yielding waves

the boy who will not yield

a fork in the road

"i guess we'll never make it to rio now."

"it's your fault. you were always the spoiled only son who expected everything handed to you on a silver platter."

(silence)

"then i guess this is it. this is where the story ends."

"it never even started."

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.