the road not taken

There are two opposing interpretations of the didactic thrust of this famous poem by Robert Frost. The first proposes that the road that the author took was indeed the correct one and he was the better for it. Proponents of this interpretation see it as analogous to idioms such as "bucking the trend" and "going against the grain" where being different sets you up in advantage over the rest of the herd. The other view suggests that the author was in fact lamenting that he took the wrong route - the one less travelled. Why else would he have sighed at the beginning of the fourth stanza? The title of the poem also seems to reflect a dwelling tinge of rue. I'm personally leaning toward the latter interpretation. But as that repository of all human knowledge since the origin of time points out, there are different shades to its probable intended meaning.

What's your take on it?

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.

- Robert Frost (1916)

And here's a clip of British thespian Alan Bates reciting the poem in a commercial directed by legendary advertising guru Neil French, for UBS. Lovely delivery.