Heroes

Here is the poem read by Frost himself. I first became aware of Robert Frost from the Simon and Garfunkel song "Dangling Conversations", when it was first published when I was a teenager in 1966. Frost is an American and his poetry is widely read and appreciated by Americans, but this poem has been widely used in many parts of the world. Here is a New Zealand advertisement where the only words that are spoken are from the poem. When people read this poem they take most notice of the last three lines: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” This seems to be a paeon to individualism, where a person boldly chooses the least popular path. The beginning of the poem seems to support this interpretation: 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; ...