I learned that today, in 1923, Robert Frost’s “Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening” was published in the New Republic.
Here’s the story of the composition of that poem – which I think is just GREAT:
Though it’s a poem about winter, Frost wrote the first draft on a warm morning in the middle of June. The night before he had stayed up working at his kitchen table on a long, difficult poem called “New Hampshire” (1923). He finally finished it, and then looked up and saw that it was morning. He’d never worked all night on a poem before. Feeling relieved at the work he’d finished, he went outside and watched the sunrise.
But while he was outside, he suddenly got an idea for a new poem. So he rushed back inside his house and wrote “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” in just a few minutes. He said he wrote most of the poem almost without lifting his pen off the page.
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.
In my humble opinion, it is that last stanza that makes this a truly great poem. Before that, although the imagery is beautiful and evocative – we are in a rather prosaic world, the world of the everyday – with neighbors and villages and harness bells – objects that cement us to the physical world.
But in the last stanza, Frost pulls his lens abruptly back … going into the universal and timeless.
Jesus, it’s moving.
Yeah, the last stanza really does make it.
Especially the change in the rhymme scheme and the repetition.
Yeah, the repetition is just haunting, isn’t it???
It’s one of my favorites…and I don’t have many favorite poems.
Every time I read it, though, I smile at the interpretation that the speaker is Santa Claus….
bwahahahahahahahahahahaha
Thank you for that post. I love that poem.
Frost rules. Thanks Sheila!
I read somewhere that someone asked Mr. Frost if that last bit represented a death wish, and that he hadn’t thought of it that way, but it might.
I love that poem, and The Road Not Taken, which I posted for a teenaged Egyptian engineering student who used to visit my blog.
I edited the sense out of that first sentence.
HE REPLIED that he hadn’t thought of it that way, but it might.
Thank you so much for the piece on Frost. I memorized this poem when I was about ten and I return to it in my mind many times. It surprises you because it seems to be such a simple poem, but it’s a masterpiece. Martha
Thank you, Sheila.
Please feel free to delete this comment if it is too ‘out there’ or religous — but as long as you mentioned Jesus – it’s kind of like the transfiguration; it’s not enough to be in awe of God and the artistry of this world, “But I have promises to keep,” we must get down off the mountain, or out of the beauty of the woods, and do something about it. Thats the thought that strikes me about the poem. peace.