Reluctance

Reluctance
by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the group,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feel question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Re*luc"tance (r?-l?k"tans), Re*luc"tan*cy (-tan-s?), n. [See Reluctant.]

The state or quality of being reluctant; repugnance; aversion of mind; unwillingness; -- often followed by an infinitive, or by to and a noun, formerly sometimes by against. "Tempering the severity of his looks with a reluctance to the action." Dryden.

He had some reluctance to obey the summons.
Sir W. Scott.

Bear witness, Heaven, with what reluctancy
Her helpless innocence I doom to die.
Dryden.

Syn. See Dislike.

© Webster 1913

Re*luc"tance, n. (Elec.)

Magnetic resistance, being equal to the ratio of magnetomotive force to magnetic flux.

© Webster 1913