What is the summary of the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost?

This twenty-line poem contains four stanzas of five lines each.
The poem is set in a wood in autumn. The poem cleverly combines memory with personal prophesy. It contains a mental picture from the poet’s past and future.

On one level, the poem describes a woodland scene where a country road split into to two roads at a fork. It also describes a traveller’s regret at not being able to travel both roads. After making up his mind about what road to take, the traveller regretted not taking the other road.
On a deeper level, the poem describes a dilemma or a no-win-situation. The poem explores feelings of curiosity and regret associated with making a decision:
‘and that has made all the difference’.

In the first stanza, Frost describes the junction where two different roads split from the road he was walking on. He must have come to a ‘y’ junction or fork in the forest road. It must have been autumn because the leaves were ‘yellow’. The poet describes his long curious gaze down the road he didn’t take. The first road he looked at was a mystery, hidden by a bend.

In the second stanza, Frost states that both roads seemed equally nice to a traveller like himself:
‘as just as fair’.
The only difference was that one road had less signs of wear from travellers and walkers:
‘Because it was grassy and wanted wear’.
‘Wanted’ means lacked. The unworn look gave that road a ‘better claim’.
Then, Frost changed his mind. He decided that both roads were in fact equally worn.

In the third stanza, he provides another image of autumn by referring to the leaves that covered both roads. There was no sign of a footstep on the leaves of either road on that morning:
‘In leaves no step had trodden black’.
Frost writes that he decided to stick to his decision about the second route. He consoled himself by saying that he would take the first road he looked at on another day. At the same time, he doubted whether he’d pass that way again.

In the final stanza, he expects he will have regrets in the future about the road he didn’t take.
‘I shall be telling this with a sigh’.
Frost expects that sometime in the future he will regret the decision he had to make in the wood. He then summarises the first and second stanza, by stating how he decided on his route:
‘and I-I took the one less travelled by’.
Note the hesitation as shown by the repetition of ‘I’
Finally, Frost predicts that in the future he will claim that his choice of road that morning in the yellow wood ‘made all the difference’. He expects that his decision at the fork in the road will shape his life or destiny.