from Past and Present by Thomas Hood

I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups--
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!

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 marked 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.

The Way Through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods.

Analysis

     I have chosen to compare two poems that concern themselves with a country road: The Road not Taken by Robert Frost and The Way Through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling. Frost's road is a grassy lane covered in fallen leaves whereas Kipling's road was a well used road that no longer exists. In both cases the road is a metaphor for a choice or an event in life.
     The two poems are structured quite differently. The Road not Taken has four stanzas of five lines, each with a rhyme scheme abaab. It is written in iambic tetrameter. The Way Through the Woods has a less formal structure with two long stanzas of twelve and thirteen lines. There is rhyme but it is not regular: abcbadeddada abcbadeddfdaa. The rhythm is unusual, predominately dactylic trimeter. Both poems do use rhythm and rhyme but they use them quite differently.
     Another way the poems differ is their use of imagery. Frost describes the road but nothing else in the environment. On the other hand, Kipling liberally illustrates his poem with images and brings the forest to life with ring doves, bagers, trout, otter and horses. Although both poems are set in the woods, Kipling's road is full of life.
     There are differences in the poems but their overall impression reads the same. Both use a road as a metaphor to convey their theme. In The Road not Taken the road could represent a career path, trusting in love or following a principle. The choice a person makes in any of those areas affect all the rest of his life. In The Way Through the Woods the road is a mark caused by something that happened long ago and its traces remain. The past event could be a trama or an inheritance the traces of which remain throughout life. The theme of both poems is pretty close to choices that people make will impact their entire lives.
     These are wonderful poems by famous poets. Each one uses slightly different poetic devices yet their themes are remarkably similar. Both poems arrive at the same point each having taken a slightly different path.

Daffodils by William Wordsworth

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
  A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
  And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
  Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
  Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
  In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
  In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
  Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

from Summer Evening by John Clare

Crows crowd croaking overhead,

Hastening to the woods to bed.

Cooing sits the lonely dove,

Calling home her absent love.

With 'Kirchup! Kirchup!' 'mong the wheats,

Partridge distant partridge greets...

Bats flit by in hood and cowl;

Through the barn-hole pops the owl;

From the hedge, in drowsy hum,

Heedless buzzing beetles bum,

Haunting every bushy place,

Flopping in the labourer's face...

Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
  When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
  Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
  The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
  The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
  A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
  Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
  Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

from Auguries of Innocence by William Blake

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.