This poem, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, explores the theme of choice and its profound impact on life's journey. Set in a quiet, yellow wood, the speaker encounters two diverging paths, symbolizing a critical life decision. Faced with the impossibility of traveling both, the speaker reflects on the uncertainty of choice and how, ultimately, selecting the "road less traveled" shapes the course of their future. Frost's timeless poem evokes a sense of reflection, as it speaks to the universal human experience of making decisions that define one's destiny.
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.