Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -- Robert Frost

Another old favourite...

(Poem #155) 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. -- Robert Frost

Like most of Frost's poems, 'Stopping By Woods' can be read on several
levels[1]. And, again like most of his poems, you can ignore them all, and
still enjoy the surface meaning, which is beautifully evocative. Just below
the surface there is the sleep/death metaphor, and the undercurrent of
gentle longing for death tinges the surface with a melancholy that
reinforces and plays off the night and winter images.

Formwise, note the predominance of soft, sibilant sounds, evoking the 'sweep
of easy wind and downy flake'. Note also the lovely rhyme scheme[2], aaba
bbcb, and the repetition of the final line, which provides closure at
several different levels.

[1] some of them incredibly contrived and/or ingenious - load up
<[broken link] http://faculty.millikin.edu/~moconner.hum.faculty.mu/e110/frost1.html> and
search for Matthew Brown, e.g.

[2] yes, yes, he rhymed 'sleep' with 'sleep'. get over it :)

For more than you ever wanted to know about Frost's life and works, see the
previous poem, poem #51

m.