The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

By: Robert Frost

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;

And 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 onto way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I should be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads divereged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Although poetry can be interpreted in many different ways depending on the person doing the interpreting, I saw this as a poem about making tough choices. I think that the fork in the road was a symbol for a choice the traveler needs to make.

When Frost says "...and looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth", I think he is talking about how when you have to make a choice, there is really no way of knowing how it will really turn out. Also, I think the line, "Yet knowing how way leads to way, I doubted if I should ever come back", means that making just one small choice can lead to so many different places in life, even if the choice didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

The traveler is looking back at this choice and remembering how he took the less likely road to take, he talks about how much of a difference that made.

I like this poem because it is something that every one goes through at some point. We are all faced with decisions every day. And often, like in this poem, the decisions we make can shape the rest of our lives.