This is one of Robert Frost’s most well-known poems. After reading it, I am on that path, everywhere and nowhere at once, alone but safe; a quiet moment of reflection on a larger journey. The words are spoken as if in a dream, and we, the reader, are right there with the poet.
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
There is structure to this poem. The stanzas have a rhyme structure a-a-b-a, b-b-c-b to c-c-d-c, then d-d-d-d. The last two lines “and miles to go before I sleep” repeated, almost trancelike, and like all words, spoken to somehow get a response, some confirmation of their meaning.
Within this structure, Frost plays with the meter, as in the line “To ask if there is some mistake,” but he varies only a little; just enough to make the words seem somewhere between normal, unmetered speech, and clearly poetic and structured speech. We slip in and out.
Frost’s deeper themes come to the fore: Strong imagery, natural landscape, mastery of rhyme and meter but an achieved simplicity of form. It often just seems like easy speech. The deeper search for meaning is evident here too and there’s no response….no certainty…
Anyways, that’s my attempt.
chr1