Robert Frost, 1915

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.

Source: The Poetry Foundation

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I remembered this poem exists thanks to my former British Literature teacher from high school. I probably first encountered it while flipping through a book of poetry, or else someone told me about it since it’s one of the more well-known ones.

It’s got a nice rhythm with the ABAAB rhyming scheme, and it’s short enough that the whole thing fits on my screen if I scroll to the right spot – just 4 stanzas, 5 lines each. I like the pleasant imagery – if a “yellow” wood, I imagine it to be in early fall when the colors have turned but not yet fallen. I can just see him leaning and peering down one way and then the other, trying to figure out what each path holds but not being able to see very far down either, knowing that whichever one he picks he’ll need to stick with until another day.

The lines that strike me most is at the beginning – “And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could”. He knew that going just down one path, whichever one, would change him. The famous lines at the end tie back into this idea – “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference”.

I wonder if Mr. Frost went out for a walk and thought up this poem as he went along, and then jotted it down when he got home. I doubt he foresaw those last couple lines in particular being copied onto all kinds of magnets and posters and posts online, but lo – his writing this poem has indeed made all the difference, for many who have read it.