“The Road Not Taken” is a poem by Robert Frost, first published in 1916. It is one of Frost’s most famous works and is often interpreted as a meditation on the choices we make in life and the consequences that follow. The speaker in the poem is standing at a fork in the road, trying to choose between two paths. He reflects on the difficulty of making decisions and the idea that each path represents a different life that he could have lived. In the end, he decides to take the path that is less traveled, suggesting a desire for individuality and independence. However, the poem also contains elements of regret and uncertainty, as the speaker wonders if he will ever return to the road he did not take.
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.