Robert Frost is one of the great poets of the twentieth century. His works have thrilled both audiences and critics alike for more than 80 years. Frost's greatness lies in the fact that his poems romanticize the rural simplicity that he loved while probing into the mysteries of the universe.

Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874 and spent his early childhood there. After the death of his father, his family moved to Salem, New Hampshire. Although he was an excellent scholar, Frost quit college to do odd jobs and write poetry. He sailed to London in 1912 where he found a publisher for his poetry. His first book, A Boy's Will (1913), brought him to the attention of influential critics, including Ezra Pound who praised Frost as a true American poet (McMichael 1669).

After the publication of a second volume of poetry called North of Boston (1914), Frost returned to the United States to win fame and fortune. He taught college and gave poetry readings throughout much of the United States. His reputation and fame grew with each book published: Mountain Interval (1916), New Hampshire (1923), West-Running Brook (1928), A Further Range (1936), A Witness Tree (1942), Steeple Bush (1947), and In the Clearing (1962). When he died in 1963, Frost had become a national bard with four Pulitzer Prizes and numerous honorary degrees (McMichael 1669).

One of Frost's finest and most popular poems is "The Road Not Taken". In this poem, Frost romanticizes the rural woods of New England. However, in the poem, Frost also probes one of the great mysteries of life: the ability to choose and the consequences of choosing.

In "The Road Not Taken", Frost describes coming to a crossroads in the woods. He pauses at the crossroads, and thinks about which road he should take. Should he take the well-worn path that leads to destruction? Or should he take the overgrown path that leads to salvation? Frost chooses the latter which, to him and audiences everywhere, has made "all the difference" (Frost 1).

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.

Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." Concise Anthology of American Literature. Ed.
George McMichael. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993. 1669-1689.

Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." Mountain Interval. New York: H. Holt and Co., 1916. 1.

Ralph, Randy D. "Stone Backgrounds." (Background 7.542 K) IconBazaar.
http://www.iconbazaar.com/backgr/stone/blrock.jpg (12 Oct. 1997).

---. "White Road Signs." (Only Left Icon .795 K) IconBazaar.
http://www.iconbazaar.com/road_signs/white/only_l.gif (12 Oct. 1997).

---. "White Road Signs." (Only Right Icon .803 K) IconBazaar.
http://www.iconbazaar.com/road_signs/white/only_r.gif (12 Oct. 1997).

Walker, Janice K. "WWW Sites." MLA-Style Citations of Electronic Sources.
http://www.cas.usf.edu/english/walker/mla.html (18 October 1997).

• Poems from the Planet Earth: Robert Lee Frost
• The complete works of Robert Frost to December 1920 from Project Bartleby
• A Frost Bouquet: Robert Frost, His Family, and the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature