The Road Not Taken ~ Robert Frost

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;

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.

Robert Frost (1874-1963) is a celebrated American poet.He received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry in his lifetime.  Many of his poems use simple rural settings to approach complex themes.

The Road Not Taken has been read at many graduation ceremonies. The poem speaks to us when we have choices to make in our life’s path. “Two roads diverged … I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

When we release poetry into the world, it leaves the context of our own world and enters the context of our audience. The interpretation of poetry is left up to the reader or listener. With an ironic twist, The Road Not Taken has become famous as encouragement at graduations, but Robert Frost wrote the poem with other intentions. Read David Orr on The Poem Everyone Loves and Everyone Gets Wrong.

Read more by Robert Frost: