Saturday, January 20, 2007

You only live once.

I've always liked this poem. Although everyone reads it and says, 'oh yes, the road he took was so great and look how well that all turned out!' I actually think it is a sad poem about regret and the fact that once you take a path you can never turn back. He never says that 'the difference' is a good thing.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

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; 5

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, 10

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. 15

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. 20

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