<P> "The Road Not Taken" is a narrative poem consisting of four stanzas of 5 lines each in iambic tetrameter (though it is hypermetric by one beat--there are nine syllables per line instead of the strict eight required for tetrameter) and is one of Frost's most popular works . Besides being among the best known poems, some claim that it is one of the most misunderstood . </P> <P> Frost's biographer Lawrance Thompson is cited as saying that the poem's narrator is "one who habitually wastes energy in regretting any choice made: belatedly but wistfully he sighs over the attractive alternative rejected". According to the Thompson biography, Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph (1971), in his introduction in readings to the public, Frost would say that the speaker was based on his friend Edward Thomas . In Frost's words, Thomas was "a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other". </P> <P> While a case could be made for the sigh being one of satisfaction, the critical "regret" analysis supports the interpretation that this poem is about the human tendency to look back and attribute blame to minor events in one's life, or to attribute more meaning to things than they may deserve . In 1961, Frost commented that "The Road Not Taken" is "a tricky poem, very tricky", implying that people generally misinterpret this poem as evidence of the benefit of free thinking and not following the crowd, while Frost's intention was to comment about indecision and people finding meaning in inconsequential decisions . A New York Times Sunday book review on Brian Hall's 2008 biography Fall of Frost states: "Whichever way they go, they're sure to miss something good on the other path ." </P>

When was two roads diverged in a yellow wood published