The Road Not Taken

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.

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.
(1915)



It is probably one of the best-known poems in literature. It deals with the dilemma existing in one’s journey, both literally and metaphorically. The thing that really catches my attention is the title – ‘The Road Not Taken’ instead of ‘The road I took ‘or ‘The road I traveled by’. The last sentence ‘And that has made all the difference’ does not suggest any positive or negative influence of that choice. If that particular choice is neutral to him, why did he choose the road not taken as the title? To me it seems that he is dropping some hints of remorse. It actually makes the poem more enduring.

The shift of tenses is also worth noticing here. For the first three stanzas, simple past tense is used to describe a particular dilemma came up when he was travelling in woods, yet he does not mention his final decision. For the last stanza, he uses mixed tenses by first imagining his future when recalling the dilemma and tells us that he eventually did make the choice. Although the reasons and the consequences of the decision remains unknown, it actually resembles the choices we make in our own life’ journey.













The road less traveled by’ by Linda Paul