von Robert Frost

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.

Robert Frost, fotografiert von Doris Ulmann, 1929 (National Portrait Gallery, gemeinfrei)

(aus Robert Frost: Mountain Interval, New York 1920; deutsche Übersetzung: Babelmatrix.org: Frost, Robert: Die verpasste Straße (The Road Not Taken in German).)

Robert Lee Frost, geboren am 26. März 1874 in San Francisco, gestorben am 29. Januar 1963 in Boston, war ein US-amerikanischer Dichter und vierfacher Pulitzer-Preisträger. Er gilt als der populärste Dichter der Vereinigten Staaten und zählt zu den bedeutendsten Poeten des 20. Jahrhunderts, auch wenn er keiner modernen literarischen Strömung eindeutig zuzuordnen ist. Das Gedicht „The Road Not Taken“ zählt neben „Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening“ zu seinen Meisterwerken. (Wikipedia: Robert Frost)

(Siehe hier auch „Ungelöste Fragen“.)