.
Paraphrase
of the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.
Introduction
The
poem was printed in ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ in August 1915, and was collected in
‘Mountain Interval’ (1916). It is an
important piece of poetry, as it explains the poet’s outlook of life.
Stanza
I
Two
roads went in two different directions in a pale forest, and the poet felt
sorry that he could not take both the roads, and couldn’t decide his path
immediately as he was the only traveller.
For a long time he stood there and watched one of the roads as far as he
could, to the farthest end where it took a curve toward the brushwood.
Stanza
II
The
poet, now, examined the other road which was equally fair and clean, and which
had perhaps a better claim since it was covered with grass and lacked
foot-marks. Both the roads were
travelled by people but the second one was less travelled by.
Stanza III
Both
the roads that day looked fresh and untrodden because the leaves (it was autumn
season) were not stepped on and not made black in colour. The poet chose the second one and kept the
first one reserved for some other day.
Nevertheless he knew that the way leads on to way, and thus a return is
not possible.
Stanza
IV
The
poet says that he will go on telling this incident with a sigh in the times to
come that there met two roads at a point in a wood, and that he took the less
travelled one, and this has made him a different individual altogether.
The Road Not Taken
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.