The inspiration for "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost, came from Frost's frequent walks with his closest friend in England, Edward Thomas. While living in Gloucestershire in 1914, Frost frequently took long walks with Thomas through the countryside. Repeatedly Thomas would choose a route, which may have shown his friend a rare plant or a special vista, but it often happened that before the end of the walk Thomas would regret the choice he had made. Thomas would sigh over what he could have shown Frost if they had taken a "better" direction. More than once, on such occasions, Frost had teased his friend for those wasted regrets. Disciplined by the biblical notion that a man, having put his hand to the plow, should not look back, Frost found something quaintly romantic in sighing over what might have been. Such a course of action was a road never taken by Frost, a road he had been taught to avoid. In a reminiscent mood Frost thought of those walks he had taken with Thomas and by that he had written "The Road Not Taken". "The Road Not Taken" is a poem that has four five-line stanzas with only two end rhymes in each stanza (abaab). Frost uses many components of poetry that helps him lead to a theme that most people are faced with on a daily basis; choices. This poem may also give reference to some biblical passages as to emphasize on spiritual choices that people also have to face.
Frost uses visual imagery: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," and "And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black" to create a picture in the reader's mind. "Because it was grassy and wanted wear," is an example of personification because the poet says that the road "wanted wear" while we all know that a road cannot think and would not have any desire at all. Frost uses end rhyme with words such as wood, stood and could. Those words are also an example of perfect rhyme. He uses enjambment when he says, "Though as for the passing there had worn them really about the same.
