The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 in his collection Mountain Interval. It is the first poem in the volume, and the first poem Frost had printed in italics.


Poem
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.




Explanation and interpretations

Stanza 1
Line 1 - The roads represent the choices in life. Yellow wood represents Autumn.
Line 2 & 3 - The persona can only make one choice. He takes his time to consider the paths.
Line 4 & 5 - The persona looks at a road(first road) and see how far will the road take him.


Stanza 2
Line 1 - The persona takes the other road(second road).
Line 2 & 3 - The persona feels that he has made a right choice as the path is fresh and inviting.
Line 4 & 5 - Equal number of people pass through both roads today. Therefore, the paths look the same.


Stanza 3
Line 1 & 2 - The next morning, no one has yet to walk down the roads.
Line 3 - The persona thinks of taking the first road some other time.
Line 4 - However, the road(second road) leads him to another path and so on.
Line 5 - The persona will not return to take the other road.


Stanza 4
Line 1 & 2 - The persona will be telling stories about his decisions when he is old. His sigh can be either a sign of relief, happiness or regret.
Line 3 - It shows that the persona still remembers his choices back then.
Line 4 - The persona made a choice which not many people made.
Line 5 - That single choice made a lot of difference in his life.



The poem, especially its last lines, where the narrator declares that taking the road "one less traveled by" "made all the difference," can be seen as a declaration of the importance of independence and personal freedom. However, Frost likely intended the poem as a gentle jab at his great friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas, and seemed amused at the slightly "mischievous" misinterpretation. The Road Not Taken seems to illustrate that once one takes a certain road, there's no turning back, although one might change paths later on, they still can't change the past.