As it turned out Frost’s expectations were disappointed. Immediately, he sent a manuscript copy of the poem to Thomas, without comment, and yet with the expectation that his friend would notice how the poem pivots ironically on the un-Frostian phase, “I shall be telling this with a sign”. In a reminiscent mood, not very long after his return to America as a successful, newly discovered poet, Frost pretended to “carry himself” in the manner of Edward Thomas just long enough to write “The Road Not Taken”. Such a course of action was a road never taken by Frost, a road he had been taught to avoid. Disciplined by the austere 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. More than once, on such occasions, the New Englander had teased his Welsh-English friend for those wasted regrets. Repeatedly Thomas would choose a route which might enable him to show his American friend a rare plant or a special vista but it often happened that before the end of such a walk Thomas would regret the choice he had made and would sigh over what he might have shown Frost if they had taken a “better” direction. While living in Gloucestershire in 1914, Frost frequently took long walks with Thomas through the countryside. The inspiration for it (The Road Not Taken) came from Frost’s amusement over a familiar mannerism of his closest friend in England, Edward Thomas.
The Road Not Taken » What Inspired The Road Not Taken What Inspired The Road Not Taken