If Poets Were Potters -- Installment #4

Two kilns diverged and one fired wood,
And sorry I could not manage both
Be one potter, and still live good
And looked down one as far as I could
To where its bag wall bent in ashy growth;

Then built the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was gas and wanted ware;
Though as for that the firing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both their shelving equally lay
In wash, and without the first crack.
Oh, I kept 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 potters and potters hence:
Two kilns diverged, gas and wood, and I—
I took the one more fired by,
And that has made all the difference.