Lessons About Life from Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas

For many years, I kept a quote by Robert Frost near at hand:

"Two roads diverged in a wood and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

I learned this poem when I was in the sixth grade and those closing lines always remained in my mind. I walk to my own drum as do my children. Safe is boring and life is about taking chances. Those chances may not always turn out, but the journey is full of interesting twists and turns.

Several years ago, probably during an "O'clock Philosophy Hour", the conversation turned to poetry. I mentioned my Frost quote and my friend Shawn said "I thought for sure you would have been more about Dylan Thomas."

Of course I knew who Thomas was but I couldn't imagine what poem Shawn was talking about.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Over the years, I've often thought about that conversation. I still hold true to following my own path, following the path that has been created for me. That path may twist and divert from the original journey, but the destination is always the same - the end.

Will I rage against the dying of the light? Will I fight to the very end, exhorting that it's too soon, that I'm not ready? Or will I simply lie back and accept that there is nothing more?

I don't interpret Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" as anti-death. I read those lines as being pro-life. Embrace life, live life, enjoy life.

Every day I am on this earth, I find a reason to celebrate being alive. A sunrise. The song of a bird. The owl resting on a power line.

To go gentle into that good night means to do nothing but merely exist each day. It means not finding reason to celebrate all of the gifts that Earth Mother has given us. It means not appreciating those we love, reveling in that love.

There is no doubt the light will die - of that one thing we can all be certain. Dylan Thomas' poem tells us to not be content breathing, eating or working. Life is meant to be lived, not just existed.

Thomas and Frost were on the same wave-length with these two poems; each just had a different means of expressing those thoughts. Contemporaries of sort, Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas lived very different lives. That could not possibly mean they could not have similar thoughts.

I leave with one more quote by Robert Frost, from "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening":

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

Live life.

Sources: http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html; http://www.bigeye.com/donotgo.htm; http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20519