Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The closing lines of ‘The Road not taken’ by American poet Robert Frost from his collection ‘Mountain Interval’ (1916)
Alex Raphael
Entertainment, travel and lifestyle blog
Alex Raphael
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I know it’s a cliche but it’s one of my favorite poems ever. It’s simple and it’s beautiful and profound
I don’t know, Tom. I’m not sure liking something that is definitively magnificent counts as cliche. How many people love Shakespeare’s Hamlet? Or the flick Casablanca? Or Cat’s Cradle (or anything written by Kurt Vonnegut)? Or . . . you name a great piece of art . . .
I think you can proudly proclaim that you love a terrific poem. 🙂
I wouldn’t use the word cliche either, It’s not up there with ‘each game as it comes’ territory yet ha. It’s a cool metaphor for life.
One of the 20th century’s greatest poems undoubtedly…
It has certainly a legacy. What other poems do you really rate?
William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”; and his “Book of Thel” (which few seem to know) is my all-time favourite. Also (some) of T.S. Eliot – “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” for example. And anything by WH Auden. Gerard Manley Hopkins. In New Zealand, it would be R.A.K. Mason and Denis Glover. These are just some!
Not a bad selection! Yeats would probably be mine.
One of my favorite poems.
It’s certainly a lovely ending too. One of the best in poetry.
At least of the poetry I’ve seen. 🙂
One of Robert Frost’s classics, the other favourite of mine being, ” Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.”
So what is it really that a less sought after option represents for us? Does it reveal a higher level confidence in one self? Or does it usher in the spirit of discovery? As I think of this, I see the biggest take-away here for me as the ability to see life as a player inside the court rather than as a spectator in the stands.
Shakti
And that poem has a lovely final set of lines too. And that’s a nice way of looking at it 🙂