synapse collapse

Robert Frost, 1916.

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.

* According to the Wikipedias, when asked, “Why?” he responded “[The sigh] was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life.” What is curious to me, a non-poet, is why it took Mr. Frost four paragraphs to say what he later said in a sentence.