Summary

The poem opens with the image of "two roads diverged in a yellow wood" (1). The speaker faced with this image explains that, upon realizing he could not possibly take both paths as he is just "one traveler" (2), he had to choose one. He notes that he contemplated one road for a very long time, following its path until the point "where it bent in the undergrowth" (5). He decided, however, to take the other road, explaining that it had "perhaps the better claim" (7) for his travel due to the fact that it was "grassy and wanted wear" (8) or seemed less traveled than the first path. However, the speaker immediately contradicts himself by admitting that they looked "really about the same" (10).

He continues this train of thought by explaining that "both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black" (11-12), noting once...