The Road Not Taken was published in 1916 by Robert Frost, an American poet famous for his writings about rural life in New England. The poem is about decisions, uncertainty, and how our choices impact our lives.
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.
Summary & Meaning
The first verse shows the writer standing at a crossroads in a yellow forest; reaching a point in life where he must make a decision. He is disappointed that he cannot take both paths, since he is just one man, so he stands there for a while and carefully looks at the first road for as far as he could see into the foliage.
He comes to the conclusion that the other path was about as good as the first one, and decides to take that one, since it appeared more grassy and less used. As the writer continues traveling along the road, he begins to think that maybe the other path would have been quite similar.
He notices that the leaves on both paths have not been turned black by the footsteps of people walking through. He decided to travel the first path on another day, however he realizes that the path he took would lead to other roads, and he might not get the chance to take that path again.
Looking back on the choice the writer made, he recalls the time when he had to choose between two roads to take. He chose the road that was less traveled, and that made all the difference in his life.
