It is a place that each sees differently
-- Speaker (Line 5)

Importance: This line sets up the list-format conceit of the poem, and the concept of subjective memory. The setting is intentionally simple: an empty natural landscape and a road that branches in four directions. This simplicity allows each person who passes through to superimpose their own perception; in other words, they see what they need at that point in their lives.

Even the Devil striking up a deal.
-- Speaker (Line 12)

Importance: This line references the most famous legend associated with the scene: a desperate person, often an artist of some kind, comes to the crossroads in order to make a deal with the devil. Notably, the poet leaves this famous image to the very end of the cast of characters, as if to say it is only one of many extraordinary things that happen here. Lyrically, the line employs consonance in the repeating D and L...