'Stopping by woods on a snowy evening' follows the ballad format with four, four-line stanzas rhyming aaba except for the last stanza which rhymes aabb. 'The road not taken' has four, 5-line stanzas following the rhyme scheme ababa. The language that Frost uses in both poems is deceptively simple, expressing complex thoughts about human life and experience.
Both poems are about the difficulty of making a choice between two good or favourable options. In the first poem, the narrator decides to take the safer and more common option leaving aside the more adventurous one. Common sense prevails and he decides to go back to the warmth, safety and security of the farmhouse rather than stay in the woods watching them fill up with snow. The farmhouse, which is safe and warm, also symbolizes the call of duty and the poet expresses his regret about the option not taken by saying "I have miles to go before I sleep" - almost as if life is a burden.
In the second poem, the narrator takes the more uncommon option - the road less travelled on, the road that seems more adventurous. However, even though he takes this option, he still says, "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence". Thus it seems as if, either way, one will always wonder about and regret the path that was not followed