В лесу осеннем два пути –
Увы, не одолеть их мне:
Поскольку оба не пройти,
То сердце замерло в груди,
Когда решил – один главней.
Я посмотрел и на другой,
Но не легла к нему душа:
Покрыт утоптанной травой –
Я по нему вернусь домой
Уставшим шагом, не спеша.
Лежали предо мной вдвоём –
Один я выбрал наугад;
Отправился вперёд тем днём!
Преодолел крутой подъём
И понял – нет пути назад.
Вздохну об этом сквозь года,
Потомкам рассказав итог:
На перепутье встал тогда,
Дорогу выбрал, что крута –
С тех пор судьбою правит рок.
Robert Lee Frost
(1874-1963)
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.