The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost (Text and summary)

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.

The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost (Summary)

The Road Not Taken is one of the finest poems of Robert Frost, which always give us a mysterious reading experience. His poems appear to be very simple but they are not exactly straightforward. The poems of Robert Frost suggest us with inner meaning, which is more profound than they appear.

The poem The Road Not Taken looks like a personal poem about a decision of vast importance, but there is serious contemplation in taking right decision in case of choice. The Road Not Taken is the most popular of the lyrics published in 1916 in the volume of poems entitled Mountain Interval. It is one of those lyrics, which combine “inner vision and the outer contemplative narration”. The poet’s imagination is set at work by the difficulty of choosing one of the two roads, which diverge at a particular point, and he comments on the difficulty and significance of making a choice in general.

One day, while travelling alone, the poet reached a point where the road diverged into two. He could not decide which road is to be taken. Finally, he chose one because it seemed a little less frequented though actually there was no much difference for, “the passing there had worn them really about the same”. Yet, even at the moment of choice, the poet was the view that the choice was important, that he would someday tell himself he took the less travelled road.

“I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

The poet’s “difference” is in him from the beginning, long before he sets out on his career. The road that Robert Frost took was not the ‘different’ road, the right road for him, but it was also the only road he could have taken. As a famous critic points out “it was the ‘choice’ the poet made which determined his destiny, and made him a poet different from others. It is in this way that the future is determined. It is thus that even minor decisions have far-reaching and life-long consequences. A step once taken, a way once chosen, can never be retraced.” 

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