The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
It brings tears to my eyes even now as I read it, remembering the young woman (not yet twenty) that I was when I first encountered it. I wanted a life characterized by adventure, not necessarily risk. This poem gave me permission to take the roads that gave me pause. Those that made me feel like, if I did not venture down them I would be missing out. And yet just as true for some of the roads I did not take. Few regrets and yet I sigh. The road less traveled by has made all the difference.
Felicia Larson
Associate Certified Coach, Speaker, & Writer
Los Gatos
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This poem describes my life and the decisions I’ve had to make. The more I grow, the more decisions I need to make for myself and sometimes I panic and wonder if I made the right one, if I took the right road. During elementary school I had to memorize this poem and ever since then it stuck with me, and as I grew up I found it described my growing up perfectly. The end of the poem is what I love the most, because the decision I have made “has made all the difference.” So much is said with this poem, definitely a favorite of mine.
Beverly Perez
Student
San Jose State University
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.
Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Blog 