a poison tree

i was angry with my friend:
i told my wrath, my wrath did end.
i was angry with my foe:
i told it not, my wrath did grow.

and i watered it in fears
night and morning with my tears,
and i sunned it with smiles
and with soft deceitful wiles.

and it grew both day and night,
till it bore an apple bright,
and my foe beheld it shine,
and he knew that it was mine -

and into my garden stole
when the night had veiled the pole;
in the morning, glad, i see
my foe outstretched beneath the tree.

: a poison tree by william blake

the arrow and the song

i shot an arrow into the air,
it fell to earth, i knew not where;
for, so swiftly it flew, the sight
could not follow it in its flight.

i breathed a song into the air,
it fell to earth, i knew not where;
for who has sight so keen and strong,
that it can follow the flight of song?

long, long afterward, in an oak
i found the arrow, still unbroke;
and the song, from beginning to end,
i found again in the heart of a friend.

: henry wadsworth longfellow

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.

by: robert frost