The High Road

Along a dirt road I'd embarked
Afoot, when, slackening my pace,
I found that I could barely place
Another road, unkempt, unmarked,
And vanishing without a trace.

The tract, disguised by lowly scrub,
Descended to dense overgrowth
Replete with thorns and thistles: Both
Its face and fate led me to snub
This thicket, which had left me loath.

I trod the path along the ridge;
The other in the glade was lost
From view, until a brook was crossed.
And there, on a decrepit bridge,
I spied the shade of Robert Frost.

The adage that the poet coined
Struck me as sheer coincidence
When, further on, I came to sense
That far gone road my path rejoined
Without one whit of difference.