Favorite Poem #1: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

My first selection is one of my mother’s favorite poems, and just like the poem’s message, she has always encouraged me to take the road “less traveled by.”

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

-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.

 

Yes, the poem is about choices, and life is full of tough ones. Frost admitted that the poem was about a friend who had gone off to war, and no matter which path he took, he would regret his choice. Sometimes we choose the path “less traveled by,” or the rough road, thinking it will yeild greater rewards. And yet like the traveler, we look back with a sigh always wondering if the other way would have been better.