The Road Not Taken – Poem by Robert Frost

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The phrases of “the road not taken,” or “the road less traveled” seem to evoke deep thinking, soul searching, or nostalgic feelings.

Who coined the phrases “the road not taken” or “the road less traveled?” I always wonder. They surely cause me to ponder upon several crossroads in my life, and how I determined my choices.

The poetry class I am taking was assigned to read the poems by Robert Frost. I looked through the poems, and my heart was drawn back to “The Road Not Taken” many times. During the class, I was hoping no one else ahead of me chose to read the same poem.

“Oh good, they all chose other poems!” It was my turn to read. I made an introduction by saying that, this poem induced a lot of thinking about the decisions I have made in my life. When I read the last two lines, my throat was choked up and my eyes were filled with tears.

The Road Not Taken – Poem by 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.

~

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, where his father, William Prescott Frost Jr., and his mother, Isabelle Moodie, had moved from Pennsylvania shortly after marrying. After the death of his father from tuberculosis when Frost was eleven years old, he moved with his mother and sister, Jeanie, who was two years younger, to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, enrolled at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1892, and later at Harvard University in Boston, though he voluntarily withdrew due to illness.
In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, whom he’d shared valedictorian honors with in high school and who was a major inspiration for his poetry until her death in 1938.
Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on January 29, 1963.
Robert Frost is ranked #3 of the top 500 poets, with William Shakespeare being #1.
Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost

https://www.poemhunter.com/robert-frost

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