Robert Frost himself wrote about this intentional light mocking [0]: "I suppose I was gently teasing them." [1] "but about a friend who had gone off to war, a

Robert Frost himself wrote about this intentional light mocking [0]: "I suppose I was gently teasing them." [1] "but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other." [2] -- [1] "On one occasion he [RF] told of receiving a letter from a grammar-school girl who asked a good question of him: 'Why the sigh?' That letter and that question, he said, had prompted an answer. Amherst Mass April 1925 "Dear Miss Yates: No wonder you were a little puzzled over the end of my Road Not Taken. It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life. I suppose I was gently teasing them. I'm not really a very regretful person, but for your solicitousness on my behalf I'm your friend always Robert Frost" [Finger, L. L.: "Frost's 'The Road Not Taken': a 1925 Letter come to Light", American Literature v.50] -- [2] "(a) One stanza of 'The Road Not Taken' was written while I was sitting on a sofa in the middle of England: Was found three or four years later, and I couldn't bear not to finish it. I wasn't thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other. He was hard on himself that way. (RF, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 23 Aug. 1953; tape recording)." "(c) Frost said that he wrote the poem, 'The Road Not Taken' for his friend [Edward Thomas] and sent it to him in France, getting the reply, 'What are you trying to do with me?' (L. Mertins: Robert Frost)" [Thompson, Lawrance: Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, Notes.] -- [0] http://www.retiredtractors.com/Frost/Roadfrost.html http://www.retiredtractors.com/Frost/Roadfrost.html