 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 where, though as for that the passing there had warned them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay, and leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day, and knowing how way leads on to a 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. It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived, whom you may know, by the name of Annabelle Lee, and this maiden she lived with no other thought. Then to love and to be loved by me, I was a child, and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea. But we loved with a love that was more than love. I am my Annabelle Lee, with a love that the winged serifs in heaven coveted her and me. And this was the reason that long ago, in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabelle Lee, so that her high-born Kingsman came and bore her away from me, to shut her up in a sepulchre, in this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, went envying her and me. Yes, that was the reason, as all men know in this kingdom by the sea, that the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabelle Lee. But our love was stronger by far than love, of those who were older than we, and many far wiser than we. And neither the angels in heaven, above nor the demons down under the sea, can ever deceiver my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabelle Lee, for the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of my beautiful Annabelle Lee. And the stars never rise. But I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabelle Lee, and so all the night tied, I lay down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, in her sepulchre, there by the sea, in her tomb by the sounding sea, tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forest of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry, and what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes, and what wings there he aspire, what the hand dare seize the fire, and what shoulder and what art could twist the sinews of thy heart, and when thy heart began to beat, what dread hand, and what dread feet, what the hammer, what the chain, and what furnace was thy brain, and what the anvil, what dread grasp, dare its deadliest terrors clasp, when the stars threw down their spears, and watered heaven with their tears, did he smile, his work to see, did he who made the lamb make thee, tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forest of the night, what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry, my ears are deaf, and yet I seem to hear sweet nature's music and the songs of man, for I have learned from fancy's artisan how written words can thrill the inner ear, just as they move the heart. And so for me, they also seem to ring out loud and free, in silent study I have learned to tell each secret shade of meaning, and to hear a magic harmony at once sincere that somehow notes the tinkle of a bell, the cooing of a dove, the swish of leaves, the raindrops pitter patter on the eaves, the lovers sigh, and thrumming of guitar, and if I choose the rustle of a star, all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and in one man in his time plays many parts, his act being seven ages, at first the infant, mulling and puking in the nurse's arms, then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail, unwillingly to school, then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad, made to his mistrist eyebrow, then a soldier full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation, even in the cannon's mouth, and then the justice, in fair round belly and good cap on lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances, and so he plays his part. The six age shifts in the lean and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side his youthful hose, well saved a world too wide, for his shrunk shank and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes, and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything, to be or not to be. That is the question, whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them, to die, to sleep, no more. And by asleep we say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is here to, tis a consummation devalued to be wished, to die, to sleep, to sleep. For chance to dream, ah, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come. When we have shuffled off this mortar coil, must give us pause, there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life, for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressors wrong, the proud man's quantumly, the pangs of despised love, the laws delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns, that patient merit of thy unworthy takes. When he himself might his quietest make with a bare bodkin, who would these fartles bear, to grunt and sweat under our weary life, and that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, for whom's born, no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of, thus conscience does make cowards of us all. And thus the native hue of resolution is sickled over with the pale cast of thought, and enterprise of great pith and moment, with disregard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. The coming of the end of the spring day is already reflected in the lakes of the cow's great eyes. Bessie Bighead greets them by the name she gave them when they were maidens, conceived in milkwood born in a barn, wrapped in paper left on a doorstep. Bighearted and bass voiced, she grew in the dark, until long dead Gomer Owen kissed her by the thigh when she wasn't looking, because he was dared. Now in the light, she'll work, sing, milk, say the cow's sweet names, and sleep until the night sucks out her soul, and spits it into the sky. It is all at once night now. The windy town is a hill of windows, and the lights of the lamps call back the day, and the dead that have run away to see. Then Captain Cat climbs into his bunk, like a cat he sees in the dark, through the voyages of his tears. He sells to see the dead, and Mr. Waldo, drunk in the dusky wood, hugs his lovely polygarter, under the eyes and the rattling tongues of the neighbors and the birds, and he does not care. But it is not his name that polygarter whispers as she lies under the oak, and loves him back.