This phrase appears at the end of the first stanza of the poem. It represents the point where the speaker can no longer see where the first road he looks down will lead. We can visualize the speaker, who is standing at a crossroads in the woods, being able to see down this road a bit. Then it bends and is so overgrown that he can't make out where it is heading. He looks at it for a long time.
This "bent" that obscures where the road leads represents the fact that we can only see into the future to a limited extent. If the fork in the road symbolizes a place where we have to make a choice in life, the poem tells us that to a large extent, we have to make our choice through a leap of faith. We choose one path but are not sure where another path might have taken us. The speaker will decide on the other path, the road less traveled, but will never be entirely certain it was the best route to take.
The poem teaches us that in life we have to make decisions without knowing exactly what the outcome will be--but there is no other way to live unless we want to stand paralyzed forever at a fork in the road.
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