No Road
No Road - meaning Summary
Choosing Absence as Liberty
The poem describes an intentional rift between two people: a once-used path is allowed to decay and be overgrown, yet remains recognizably intact. The speaker accepts—indeed wills—the erasure of their connection, imagining a future where the road no longer exists. That acceptance is presented ambivalently: it feels like freedom to let life proceed without them, but also like a personal wound or illness, a self-inflicted withholding that the speaker both claims and suffers.
Read Complete AnalysesSince we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time's eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers - our neglect Has not had much effect. Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it stands, so little overgrown, Walking that way tonight would not seem strange, And still would be followed. A little longer, And time would be the stronger, Drafting a world where no such road will run From you to me; To watch that world come up like a cold sun, Rewarding others, is my liberty. Not to prevent it is my will's fulfillment. Willing it, my ailment.
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