April is National Poetry Month. I learned that yesterday, so while I was thumbing through some old anthologies from college, I pulled out a particularly nice poem to share.
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 sign
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, 1916
I love this poem. Thanks for the reminder this morning to always take the road less traveled.
This has been a favorite of mine since high school when I first read it. Ironically, I actually had been thinking about posting it on my blog for National Poetry month and still may do so.
I like frost, but I think I would have liked this one more if it wasn’t so over-used in general society, for graduation cards and such. I didn’t know it was national poetry month though, cool.