Frost and Rossetti's representations of life's journey toward death

¶ … deliberations -- deeply thoughtful, philosophical ponderings -- about traveling through life and encountering troubling decisions, then asking questions vis-a-vis those decisions. Frost's "The Road Not Taken" turns out to be the road that was taken, although the speaker assures the reader that it was a tough decision. And in Rossetti's "Uphill" the speaker is unsure of the future but must keep traveling even though at the end of the journey the light is fading. Both poems embrace the confusion and even uncertainty about the future, and both are reflective of -- and in a real way they mirror -- how life moves along through time and why intelligent, thoughtful people can have fear of the future and can be troubled as to how and why the future will be kind or unkind to the individual.

Speakers

Poem One (Frost): Frost's speaker lets the reader know in the first stanza that he is in a bit of a quandary as to which road to take. "Long I stood," he writes, sounding a bit like an older person. His lines seem to convey a theme of an older person because older people are known to have trouble making up their minds, or at least they are known to be confused (at least momentarily) by choices in front of them. Older people have a lot of time on their hands so that explains why the speaker is in no hurry to choose a path to take. Moreover the speaker keeps reminding the reader that the roads are equal, and yet they aren't, which comes across as equivocation that one might associate with an older person. The theme then leads a reader to surmise that while the speaker has seemingly vacillated over which path / road to take -- even though they appear to be equally attractive to the eye -- in the end the right decision was made.

Poem Two (Rossetti): An alert reader might perceive the two speakers in Rossetti's poem as being young and old. The first speaker could be a young voice and the voice that answers seems wise and full of good advice. The journey in this poem could well be a metaphor for life's journey, not just to a hotel (inn) but to maturity and possibly death. Every question could be interpreted as a younger person asking an older person what the journey into maturity will entail. The line, "A roof for when the slow dark hours begin," seems to be suggesting that when a person gets on in years and slows down, and the light is beginning to vanish, that is old age. "May not the darkness hide it from my face?" The young speaker asks, and the wise voice answers, "You cannot miss that inn," which could be a metaphor for the fact that we all grow old and the end of the trail for all of us will be obvious.

Imagery

Poem One (Frost): The "yellow" wood suggests autumn or winter, as leaves change color following the summer. The "undergrowth" suggests a tangle of greenery that has not been kept trimmed back, and is overgrown "and grassy," suggesting green juxtaposed with the yellow leaves on the trees above (youth vs. age). Above, something is changing and aging while below, something fallow wants footsteps. But once a foot steps on the grass, it turns black from the pressure of the foot; at the end of life, all color disappears into black.

Poem Two (Rossetti): Life is an uphill climb, and that is symbolized in the first question. Are there others in the same predicament ("shall I meet other wayfarers at night?") is a line suggesting that there are others who are near to the end of death and waiting for the light to go out. "They will not keep you standing at that door" could be the poet saying you don't have to stand at the gates of heaven and wait to be asked in; in other words, you'll know heaven when you get there.