The Road Not Taken
by buildingpharmabrands
Robert Frost was a one of the most popular and critically respected American poets of the twentieth century. Frost was honoured frequently during his life time. He received four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetical works. Frost, although never graduated from college, had received over 40 honorary degrees including ones from Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities. What is more he was the only person to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. He became one of America’s rare public literary figures, almost an artistic institution.
The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost is probably one of the best-known, most-often misunderstood poems.
Robert Frost is speaking about the unique path we all travel in life. Everyday we are faced with dilemmas just like the poet who is standing in the woods, considering a fork in the road. He chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other another day. He ends the poem on a nostalgic note, wondering how different things would have been had he chosen the other path.
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 here 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 travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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