"The Road Not Taken " by Robert Frost

 

The Road Not Taken

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;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

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 ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

Poem Video👇 

https://youtu.be/GxUx-U2Gavs

Who wrote the poem "The Road Not Taken"?

Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963)

 

Robert Frost was an American poet who was born in San Francisco, California. Frost’s life was marked by grief and loss. When he was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving just eight dollars. Frost’s mother died of cancer when he was 26. Mental illness ran in his family. He and his mother suffered from depression, and his sister and his daughter were committed to mental hospitals. Using realistic depictions of rural life, his poems often examined complex social and philosophical themes. Frost’s first book was published at the age of 40, but he ended up winning four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and becoming the most famous poet of his time.

"The Road Not Taken" explanation

 

In the poem, the speaker arrives at a critical juncture between two different paths. He chooses the less travelled road, and his future self looks back on his past decision with mixed feelings. Frost reportedly wrote this poem based on his Walsh friend named Edward Thomas who was always regretful of his past decisions. The poem also might be based on the poet’s own life. He tried to be a farmer to feed his family, which was very common at the time, but ended up a poet (“less travelled road”). He gave up farming in 1908, published his first book of poetry in 1915, and wrote this poem in 1916.