Robert Frost : The road not taken

John Elwood Bundy

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.

Robert Frost, Poems, St. Martin's Paperback

The road not taken est sans doute le poème le plus connu de Robert Frost. La dernière strophe notamment a fait couler beaucoup d'encre, particulièrement les mots "sigh" et "difference". Il faut se garder de toute interprétation hâtive et envisager plusieurs sens possibles. Robert Frost lui-même mettait en garde ses lecteurs sur l'interprétation de ce poème : "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem - very tricky."