Believe English
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
The road in the forest went in two directions
And I wanted to go both ways
But I had to choose, so I thought
I looked to see where one road went
All the way until it turned into the forest
I went on the other road, which also looked good
This road needed to be walked on
Because plants were growing back over it
But really both of the roads were used
About the same
But no one had been there that morning
I was the first person to walk there that day
But I kind of knew that as life went on
I would probably never come back
I saved the first road for another trip
I might remember this with regret
Sometime in the future
The road in the forest went in two directions
I went the less popular way
And that changed everything.
Diverge to go in a different direction
Undergrowth small plants, bushes
Undergrowth small plants, bushes
Fair pretty, nice
Claim justification, a reason to be chosen
Wear To be used; worn down, worn out
Trod To step, Trodden Stepped on
Ages A long time
Hence From now, in the future
Commentary
Robert Frost is one of our great poets. This poem is one of his most famous. Maybe you have heard it already. He is very easy to read because his poems really sound like stories, and his language is pretty simple. Like in many poems he is saying one thing and thinking about something else. The short answer is he is thinking about his life. The way he thinks about his life is the way many people in America think about our lives. It is not always the way we really live our lives, but it is the way we would like to imagine we are going to live our lives.