The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost的The Road Not Taken是我喜欢的诗，读来琅琅上口，意味悠远，abaab的尾韵压得也很好。

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

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 will 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.

这首诗被编选甚多（甚至出现在Dead Poets Society的台词里），大家都把它视为“个性的宣言（an advertisment of individuality）”；但仅从诗歌来看，“是否存在一条未选择的路”，却是学界争论不休的问题。大多数学者都认为，Frost这样描述两条路的差别是完全说不通的（too ambivalent），所以他们认为，那条“人迹更少”的路，可能根本不存在。