by Jerry Curtis

Created on: January 31, 2010

Read this poem on the web site “Some Poems of Robert Frost 1949” 

“The Road not Taken,” by Robert Frost is beautifully crafted little poem about life's choices. Placed in a pleasant rhyming scheme (ABAAB) it verges on open verse, since some of the rhymes get lost in its reading. Nevertheless, the poem is a fast read and easily understandable. Younger poetry students sometimes have trouble with the metaphor of the “road,” and this work is a good one to use to ease youngsters into an appreciation of poetry. 

For poetry lovers seeking an interpretation of this poem, here's a stanza-by-stanza explanation:

I - Our poet encounters two roads in a “yellow wood,” which indicates yellow leaves either on the ground or on the trees. He notices that the roads “diverge” (separate), and is sorry that he could not go down both roads “And be one traveler.” Life is like that. We humans live in a time line that is influenced by choices. We are all just “one traveler.” Before the poet proceeds down one of the roads, he stares and ponders as far as he can “To where it bent into the undergrowth.” He could stare all day, but the way ahead of him was hidden.

II - But he took “the other,” which had a “better claim” on his choice. He liked it because the grass seemed higher and not trampled upon. On the other hand, many had also taken that second road because their traveling “Had worn them really about the same.”

III- The poet notices that each path had leaves strewn with footprints that did not come back towards him. His strong intention was to keep the first path “for another day,” but he knew how “way leads on to way” and he doubted that he would ever come back and take that other road. Life is like that. It is often too short or too complicated to come back to the point where we made that choice, or took that “road.” We simply run out of time. 

IV - The poet knows that sometime in the future he shall “be telling this with a sigh.” He will remember those two roads diverged (separated) at that junction, and he took the one “less traveled by.” The last line tells us everything we need to know about the poet's satisfaction with the choice he made: “And that has made all the difference.” Of course, Robert Frost became a famous poet, and his choices "made all the difference" to him?

Food for thought: What about someone who take another "road less traveled," and ends up stuck in the mud? Often we are fortunate enough to have seemingly good choices in the “roads” we take in our life. The poet was happy that the choices he made by taking the road “less traveled.” Others are not so fortunate. During a 1953 Writers' Conference, Frost put it this way:

"One stanza of The Road Not Taken was written while I was sitting on a sofa in the middle of England was found three or four years later, and I couldn't bear not to finish it. I wasn't thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other. He was hard on himself that way."

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference August 1953

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