America's favourite poet

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work frequently used themes from rural life in New England, using the setting to examine complex social and philosophical themes. A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes.

Robert Frost was native of California, born in San Francisco, and lived there until he was 11 years old. Frost's father was a good teacher, and later an editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. The road not taken for young Robert might have been as a Californian editor rather than a New England poet.

He married with Elinor in Lawrence in 1895. They too were both qualified school teachers. Robert suffered exhaustion from teaching and the doctor prescribed fresh air. Grandfather Frost purchased a farm for the young couple in New Hampshire, shortly before his death. Frost worked on the farm for nine years and wrote many of the poems early in the mornings that would later become famous. His attempts at farming were not successful and Frost returned to education.

In 1912, Frost sailed with his family to Great Britain. His first book of poetry, was published the next year. Frost wrote some of his best work while in England.
As World War I began, Frost returned to America in 1915. He bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching, and lecturing.

Frost was 86 when he spoke at the inauguration of President Kennedy on January 20, 1961. He died a little more than two years later, in Boston, on January 29, 1963.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

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.

EL CAMI QUE NO VAIG TRIAR

Dos camins divergien en un bosc grogós
i em sabia greu no pode'ls agafar tots dos
i com que era un viatger, em vaig plantar
i me’n vaig mirar un tan lluny com vaig poder
cap on s’endinsava en la boscúria.

Llavors vaig agafar l’altre, perquè sí,
com si hagués fet l’elecció encertada,
perquè era espès i requeria ús;
malgrat això, el pas per l'altre
hauria comportat el mateix.

I tots dos jeien igual aquest matí,
amb les fulles no trepitjades.
I vaig deixar el primer per un altre dia!
Tot i saber que tot segueix endavant,
vaig dubtar si hauria hagut d’entornar-me’n.

Dec dir això amb un sospir
d’aquí fins a l’eternitat:
dos camins divergien en un bosc,
i jo vaig agafar el menys transitat;
i això va fer tota la diferència.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

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