Review: "The Road not taken" by Robert Frost

 “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

When one reaches a particular stage in life, it is inevitable that one would turn back and look at the road taken.  This would inevitably invite one to ruminate on all the roads that one has not taken. The important thing for me is to realize that no one can walk all the roads and there is no point in thinking about going back. The important thing for me is to make the right decision when one comes to a fork of a road and then make the best of it. In this poem Frost articulates my fears on making choices, and the rationalizations I often make of the choices I have made.