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.
-Robert Frost
Two roads diverged, and there I stood
Trying fruitlessly to see ahead
Tried to divine, as if I could
Both roads and where they might have led.
Immersed school, nearing journey’s end
Fearing to leave those hallowed halls
To scholarship my steps would bend
But to what ivy-covered walls?
To warm red brick, chalk dust, books piled high
Wittgenstein, Sartre, contemplation, debate
The inner world of the mind, letting life go by
To wrestle with new philosophical states?
Or to the other, stark, seeming cold
Walls folded round a hive of activity
To study the mind with test tubes and pipettes
How foreign it seemed then to me!
I took the cold road, as I thought I must
In search of cures for tortured minds
Philosophy left behind, books to dust
I walk logical paths of different kinds.
The science road, revealed to me
Was never cold nor stark
It glows with passion and energy
Making other paths seems dark.
Though now I remember my two roads
and philosophy with a sigh
I do not regret my test tube choice
And love the road I travel by.
