Two Roads

 

Associate Librarian Sue Hurbanek remembers memorizing this poem while in school and still recalls it fondly.

 

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.

Robert Frost wrote this poem in 1915, and readers have been debating its meaning ever since. Is this a hymn to individualism, a call to take the harder, virtuous path through life or was Frost merely ribbing an indecisive walking companion? Would the well-trod road have been a mistake or just different?

I envy Sue her experience of memorizing poetry for school.  It was out of fashion when I went through, and I think I missed something.  Those generations that memorized poetry have an internal soundtrack of beautiful words and inspiring thoughts.  My generation got advertising jingles.