Poetry Moment: Of regrets and Robert Frost

When I was in fifth grade, as part of our 'graduation' ceremony, we recited a poem by Robert Frost, with very precise articulation, as coached by Ms. Richmond.  I still remember it today, including the emphases.  The emphasis is difficult to type, but it went something* like this:

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
for 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
though knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back
...
I shall be telling it with a sigh, 
someday 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!

Now I will be forever grateful to my teacher for drilling this poem so deeply into my brain that it stuck for 15 years.  I really love it, and I'm willing to bet that nearly every other student there also still remembers it, but I realized, quite recently, that we were telling it completely wrong!

If you ask people the title of that poem, myself included, they will often tell you it's "The Road Less Travelled" or "A yellow wood" or something like that; but the title of the poem is

The Road Not Taken

This is not a emphatic call to arms, but a quiet reflection on indecision and a meaningless choice between two equal options that shaped the future (or didn't, depending on how you read the final line)

When I read the poem today, I notice other things:

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
for 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
though knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling it with a sigh
someday 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.

When Robert Frost wrote this poem, he sent it to a friend of his, who also read it as a call to arms.  He enlisted in World War I and was killed two years later.

Now you can read poems however you want, and this observation that we're reading it wrong isn't anything new. But it was new to me.

*Note: Both times I typed this from memory, so there might be minor errors, I imagine they too have made all the difference.