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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
"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."
Written by Robert Frost in 1922, and first published in 1923, the poem that begins "Whose woods these are I think I know" surely holds a special place in American hearts. Frost was a poet who could and did speak to everyone, but rarely more memorably than in this evocation of the quiet delights of winter.
For this special edition with a new design, trim size, and three new spreads, Susan Jeffers has added more detail and subtle color to her sweeping backgrounds of frosty New England scenes. There are more animals to find among the trees, and the kindly figure with his "promises to keep" exudes warmth as he stops to appreciate the quiet delights of winter. The handsome new vellum jacket will attract new and old fans as it evokes a frost-covered windowpane. It is truly one to share with the whole family.
Illustrated in Full color
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
Written by Robert Frost in 1922, and first published in 1923, the poem that begins "Whose woods these are I think I know" surely holds a special place in American hearts. Frost was a poet who could and did speak to everyone, but rarely more memorably than in this evocation of the quiet delights of winter.
For this special edition with a new design, trim size, and three new spreads, Susan Jeffers has added more detail and subtle color to her sweeping backgrounds of frosty New England scenes. There are more animals to find among the trees, and the kindly figure with his "promises to keep" exudes warmth as he stops to appreciate the quiet delights of winter. The handsome new vellum jacket will attract new and old fans as it evokes a frost-covered windowpane. It is truly one to share with the whole family.
Illustrated in Full color
32 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1923
About the author
Robert Frost
843 books4,715 followersFlinty, moody, plainspoken and deep, Robert Frost was one of America's most popular 20th-century poets. Frost was farming in Derry, New Hampshire when, at the age of 38, he sold the farm, uprooted his family and moved to England, where he devoted himself to his poetry. His first two books of verse, A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), were immediate successes. In 1915 he returned to the United States and continued to write while living in New Hampshire and then Vermont. His pastoral images of apple trees and stone fences -- along with his solitary, man-of-few-words poetic voice -- helped define the modern image of rural New England. Frost's poems include "Mending Wall" ("Good fences make good neighbors"), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" ("Whose woods these are I think I know"), and perhaps his most famous work, "The Road Not Taken" ("Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- / I took the one less traveled by"). Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times: in 1924, 1931, 1937 and 1943. He also served as "Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress" from 1958-59; that position was renamed as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry (or simply Poet Laureate) in 1986.
Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy... Frost attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard, but did not graduate from either school... Frost preferred traditional rhyme and meter in poetry; his famous dismissal of free verse was, "I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down."
Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy... Frost attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard, but did not graduate from either school... Frost preferred traditional rhyme and meter in poetry; his famous dismissal of free verse was, "I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 521 reviews
December 24, 2020
If I could share with you one of my favorite Christmas stories? Happy Everything, y'all, especially a shiny, fantastic new year in which we are bigger than a virus but smaller than Love.
It was the end of the fall semester, the end of a long evening lit class, and the hands on the clock indicated 9:40.
(For those of you who aren't familiar with the term clock, it was a circular device, affixed to the wall, to indicate time).
It was a Wednesday evening, and I had two essays due the following day (hadn't started either yet), and I had a raging crush on a guy named Kurt, who was meeting me after class to make-out (and who turned out to be a TOTAL LOSER).
But, let's get back to 9:40 and the class that would never end and my shaking right leg and my eyes that could not be averted from the clock.
The professor was still at the front of the class, silent now, holding papers and an open book before him.
(For those of you who aren't familiar with the term papers, they were an ancient form of keeping track of notes, information and whatnot, before laptops).
And, just as I was about to jam my thumb deep into my right eye socket from boredom and anticipation of release, the professor allowed the room to fall into a silent confusion before he almost whispered:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
He paused. The class stopped moving in irritation. I averted my eyes from the clock.
He continued:
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. . .
He stopped reading and rubbed his chin, as though he was pulling at a beard, and repeated: My little horse. Hmmm.
And continued:
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He paused and repeated this line: The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake.
He stopped here and quietly pulled at his fake beard again. His harness bells, eh?
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.
He turned away to set his book down on his desk and quietly said, “Good night.” He did not turn back again, to face us.
We shuffled out of the room in a hushed reverence.
No poetry recitation by another person has ever affected me more.
This illustrated version of Frost's famous poem captures the magic of that evening for me.
It was the end of the fall semester, the end of a long evening lit class, and the hands on the clock indicated 9:40.
(For those of you who aren't familiar with the term clock, it was a circular device, affixed to the wall, to indicate time).
It was a Wednesday evening, and I had two essays due the following day (hadn't started either yet), and I had a raging crush on a guy named Kurt, who was meeting me after class to make-out (and who turned out to be a TOTAL LOSER).
But, let's get back to 9:40 and the class that would never end and my shaking right leg and my eyes that could not be averted from the clock.
The professor was still at the front of the class, silent now, holding papers and an open book before him.
(For those of you who aren't familiar with the term papers, they were an ancient form of keeping track of notes, information and whatnot, before laptops).
And, just as I was about to jam my thumb deep into my right eye socket from boredom and anticipation of release, the professor allowed the room to fall into a silent confusion before he almost whispered:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
He paused. The class stopped moving in irritation. I averted my eyes from the clock.
He continued:
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. . .
He stopped reading and rubbed his chin, as though he was pulling at a beard, and repeated: My little horse. Hmmm.
And continued:
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He paused and repeated this line: The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake.
He stopped here and quietly pulled at his fake beard again. His harness bells, eh?
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.
He turned away to set his book down on his desk and quietly said, “Good night.” He did not turn back again, to face us.
We shuffled out of the room in a hushed reverence.
No poetry recitation by another person has ever affected me more.
This illustrated version of Frost's famous poem captures the magic of that evening for me.
December 11, 2018
This poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost isn’t my favourite poem, but it holds a special place in my heart since it’s the first poem I remember knowing by heart - not that I recall ever actively trying to memorize it. I memorized it bit by bit, or bird-by-bird if Anne Lamott is around, but it was never my intention to memorize it, it began more like a game.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
With some lovely illustrations by Susan Jeffers to go along with Frost’s poem, I wanted to have a copy of this, and I’m glad that I put this out on the coffee table just before everyone arrived for dinner (and bringing dinner, I might add) the other night.
Sometimes words, songs, images hold so much significance within them that it seems impossible to convey what meaning your heart has assigned them. For me, I remember walking along the pews of the church my grandfather was caretaker of, and polishing the wood, while we would take turns with the lines of poems like this one, he on one side of the church, me on the other. This always makes me think of him, my grandfather, and the sanctity of these words spoken in this holy-to-me place, and the many blessings I have in memories like this one that I treasure.
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.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
With some lovely illustrations by Susan Jeffers to go along with Frost’s poem, I wanted to have a copy of this, and I’m glad that I put this out on the coffee table just before everyone arrived for dinner (and bringing dinner, I might add) the other night.
Sometimes words, songs, images hold so much significance within them that it seems impossible to convey what meaning your heart has assigned them. For me, I remember walking along the pews of the church my grandfather was caretaker of, and polishing the wood, while we would take turns with the lines of poems like this one, he on one side of the church, me on the other. This always makes me think of him, my grandfather, and the sanctity of these words spoken in this holy-to-me place, and the many blessings I have in memories like this one that I treasure.
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.
June 6, 2024
i read this like 5 years ago
i hate robert frost sfm
i hate robert frost sfm
April 27, 2021
A touching and snowy poem beautifully illustrated in a wintry landscape of trees and snowflakes recalling that remembered phrase, “and miles to go before I sleep.” 4.5 stars.
January 10, 2024
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, illustrated by Susan Jeffers.
Robert Frost's classic winter poem, Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, which was composed in 1922 and first published in 1923 as part of his New Hampshire volume, provides the text for this beautiful picture-book. His evocative words are paired with Susan Jeffers' beautiful artwork, which amplifies the story to be found in the poem, depicting the travelling narrator as a kindly soul who leaves good things for the forest residents as he passes through.
As someone who has loved this poem since the day I first encountered it, as a young girl reading through the collected works of Robert Frost to be found on my father's shelves, I was pretty much guaranteed to enjoy this book, but I found that I was unexpectedly moved by Jeffers' artwork. The illustrations, which capture both the pale beauty of a snow-covered world, as well as the more colorful elements brought into that world by the man in his snow-drawn carriage, have quite a few surprises hidden in them. From the hares hiding in the brush on one page, to the deer watching as the man lays down the food he has brought for the woodland animals, there is plenty going on in the illustrations that add to the 'basic' story-line of the poem. Highly recommended to anyone looking for picture-book presentations of classic poems intended for children, as well as to fans of Ms. Jeffers' artwork.
Robert Frost's classic winter poem, Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, which was composed in 1922 and first published in 1923 as part of his New Hampshire volume, provides the text for this beautiful picture-book. His evocative words are paired with Susan Jeffers' beautiful artwork, which amplifies the story to be found in the poem, depicting the travelling narrator as a kindly soul who leaves good things for the forest residents as he passes through.
As someone who has loved this poem since the day I first encountered it, as a young girl reading through the collected works of Robert Frost to be found on my father's shelves, I was pretty much guaranteed to enjoy this book, but I found that I was unexpectedly moved by Jeffers' artwork. The illustrations, which capture both the pale beauty of a snow-covered world, as well as the more colorful elements brought into that world by the man in his snow-drawn carriage, have quite a few surprises hidden in them. From the hares hiding in the brush on one page, to the deer watching as the man lays down the food he has brought for the woodland animals, there is plenty going on in the illustrations that add to the 'basic' story-line of the poem. Highly recommended to anyone looking for picture-book presentations of classic poems intended for children, as well as to fans of Ms. Jeffers' artwork.
August 17, 2022
IM SO TIRED OF THIS POEM BLAH
I’m taking stars from the rating because it is ubiquitous at winter time and drives me crazy.
Going through my shelves to quickly check on progress and I see this poem and it just reminds me that we are already halfway through the year and it’s going to be winter soon and I hate you Robert frost for celebrating snow.
I’m taking stars from the rating because it is ubiquitous at winter time and drives me crazy.
Going through my shelves to quickly check on progress and I see this poem and it just reminds me that we are already halfway through the year and it’s going to be winter soon and I hate you Robert frost for celebrating snow.
January 24, 2012
So often when I think of my children I think of vibrancy, energy, motion. Sometimes it's dancing, sometimes it's that I'm-too-tired-to-admit-I-need-a-nap frantic zooming from one thing they shouldn't do (or touch, or put in their mouth) to another. Poetry and children just seem to go together. Children respond with pleasure to the unexpected rhyme, the tap-tap-tapping of an alliterative phrase, or the reassuring rhythm of a familiar meter. In so many ways, kids are poetry - poetry in motion. Most of the the poetry I read to my kids reflects that motion, that high energy. Shel Silverstein. Dr. Seuss. Sandra Boynton.
Then one day in the bookstore, after grabbing the newest Skippyjon Jones and dragging my son away from the trains, this caught my eye:
and I remembered. I remembered the first time I read Robert Frost. The first time I ever read a poem that made me stop; that made me feel the weight of the pauses, the meaning in the silence between words. So it came home with us as well.
That night, we read Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, but we read it slowly. The illustrations by Susan Jeffers really couldn't be more perfect. We savored each of Frost's lines, then asked each other questions about the pictures - looking for the spots of color in the winter blacks, whites, and greys. 'Do you see any more animals?' or 'That owl is beautiful!' I have read this poem, with these illustrations, to my son time and time again, and to his little sister as well. Yet, however many times we read it, it never ceases to amaze me how still they are, and how wonderful it is to have a children's poetry book to reflect that stillness.
Children are poetry in motion. But they are poetry in stillness, too.
Then one day in the bookstore, after grabbing the newest Skippyjon Jones and dragging my son away from the trains, this caught my eye:
and I remembered. I remembered the first time I read Robert Frost. The first time I ever read a poem that made me stop; that made me feel the weight of the pauses, the meaning in the silence between words. So it came home with us as well.
That night, we read Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, but we read it slowly. The illustrations by Susan Jeffers really couldn't be more perfect. We savored each of Frost's lines, then asked each other questions about the pictures - looking for the spots of color in the winter blacks, whites, and greys. 'Do you see any more animals?' or 'That owl is beautiful!' I have read this poem, with these illustrations, to my son time and time again, and to his little sister as well. Yet, however many times we read it, it never ceases to amaze me how still they are, and how wonderful it is to have a children's poetry book to reflect that stillness.
Children are poetry in motion. But they are poetry in stillness, too.
March 18, 2020
Robert Frost is a prime example of poetry done well. I don't know about all of that "metaphorical philosophy" stuff, but Robert Frost both gets straight to the point, and does so with words that flow perfectly, painting vivid images in your mind.
I first read this through school (a couple years ago, it must have been), and it was my first experience actually enjoying poetry. This poem will probably hold a place in my heart forever, and I am eager to read more of Frost, am I ever given the opportunity.
I first read this through school (a couple years ago, it must have been), and it was my first experience actually enjoying poetry. This poem will probably hold a place in my heart forever, and I am eager to read more of Frost, am I ever given the opportunity.
October 28, 2011
Loved this poem. Story of my life.
February 3, 2018
The old familiar words are given new life by Susan Jeffers' ethereal, lovely illustrations as an elderly gentleman stops to admire the beauty of a quiet woods, and even makes a snow angel.
December 31, 2023
Lovely poem by Robert Frost and beautiful illustrations by Susan Jeffers, one of my favorite children's book illustrators. Sadly she passed away in January of 2020 after a brief illness: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...
She left us with many beautifully illustrated children's books including one of my favorites Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle.
Goodreads has mixed her up with another Susan Jeffers, an American psychologist who died in 2012 and has also written books, including Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Her books are on the same Goodreads page as the books of Susan Jeffers, the children's book illustrator. I would request that Goodreads fix this, but I have given up asking them for help with anything.
She left us with many beautifully illustrated children's books including one of my favorites Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle.
Goodreads has mixed her up with another Susan Jeffers, an American psychologist who died in 2012 and has also written books, including Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Her books are on the same Goodreads page as the books of Susan Jeffers, the children's book illustrator. I would request that Goodreads fix this, but I have given up asking them for help with anything.
June 21, 2023
I highly encourage reading and showing the illustrations of this book to every child. The illustrations are amazing and paired with Robert Frost's classic poem, it gets even better. All-in-all this is a beautiful picture book for a winter night before bed.
February 25, 2022
Ah! so this is the poem which contains the line "And miles to go before I sleep."
October 23, 2023
We read many poems in life, but not all poems are memorable. Some poems are so beautiful that they remain in the mind forever."Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
is a poem that we can't forget even if we want to, its lines are very fluent and beautiful...My favorite lines are...
"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"
These lines are so beautiful.. By these lines we can understand that Our human life is very short but our responsibilities are many..So we have to fulfill our duties and responsibilities before our death.
I think that Robert Frost would have been famous for writing this poem alone if even his other poems had been unpublished. Because the poem is so meaningful and beautiful that is why he is immortalized through this poem..This is my own opinion so it may not match anyone else's opinion..
is a poem that we can't forget even if we want to, its lines are very fluent and beautiful...My favorite lines are...
"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"
These lines are so beautiful.. By these lines we can understand that Our human life is very short but our responsibilities are many..So we have to fulfill our duties and responsibilities before our death.
I think that Robert Frost would have been famous for writing this poem alone if even his other poems had been unpublished. Because the poem is so meaningful and beautiful that is why he is immortalized through this poem..This is my own opinion so it may not match anyone else's opinion..
January 4, 2021
Lovely artwork that nicely adds to the text. The book didn't hold the attention of my class of one and two year olds, but maybe children around five and up would enjoy it.
January 24, 2023
The art work is beautiful. It makes the poem come alive.
December 24, 2012
This is a sweetly illustrated book and makes a nice read-aloud for littler ones. My problem with it is that the illustrations fail to do justice to the poem's intimations. There's way too much light for "the darkest evening of the year," for instance, and the narrator is shown making snow angels on the snowy floor of the woods. If you want to read a poem to little ones while having pictures to show, fine. But I wouldn't think Robert Frost would enjoy this near subversion of his masterpiece! The subtler meanings of this beautiful work, which is one of my favorite of Frost's, by the way, are completely absent. Even children's books can stay true to the spirit of a work while catering to the understanding of younger minds, but I get no sense here that the artist even understood the implications of the words. I was disappointed, therefore, but if you don't mind an interpretation determined to put a happy spin on Frost's deeper reflections, this might still satisfy you with its pretty artwork.
November 19, 2022
The classic poem is reproduced with artwork of a young woman and her faithful quiet horse. The quality of the light through snowclouds is well realised, dark evergreen forest and hushing drifts on all sides.
While the rider is shown dismounting and embracing the weather, I would not do this myself, because the horse would need to get to a stable and a blanket, and shouldn't be made to travel through deep snow, especially with a rider's weight. I saw the poem as a rider pausing to check their path, making sure the horse was breathing okay, and maybe brushing snow off their shoulders. Then moving along, with care. Before the snow got deeper.
Enjoy, this will be good for primary school readers and will help them to memorise the poem.
I read this at the Dublin Book Festival. This is an unbiased review.
While the rider is shown dismounting and embracing the weather, I would not do this myself, because the horse would need to get to a stable and a blanket, and shouldn't be made to travel through deep snow, especially with a rider's weight. I saw the poem as a rider pausing to check their path, making sure the horse was breathing okay, and maybe brushing snow off their shoulders. Then moving along, with care. Before the snow got deeper.
Enjoy, this will be good for primary school readers and will help them to memorise the poem.
I read this at the Dublin Book Festival. This is an unbiased review.
April 8, 2017
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.
One of my most fav poems by my favorite poet.... I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS POEM <3
Whenever I read it, I imagine myself walking through a forest with such lush scenery ^_^
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.
One of my most fav poems by my favorite poet.... I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS POEM <3
Whenever I read it, I imagine myself walking through a forest with such lush scenery ^_^
November 21, 2022
One of my favourite poems is beautifully illustrated by P.J.Lynch in this children’s book.The shades of green and blue used evoke the beauty, darkness and isolation of the snowy woodland scene.The horse illustrations, in particular the one in which he looks quizzically at the girl are used very effectively as a reminder of civilisation and the domestic.My only quibble is that for the last line,the illustrator has the rider leaving the scene whereas in the poem the issue of whether to linger in the woods or move on is left unresolved .Perhaps the endpaper would have been a more appropriate accompaniment to that line.
January 8, 2019
Oh, this is just lovely. Mostly black and white illustrations with soft pastel enhancements, gently added. The quick poem of a ride in nature on a snowy evening, a sled behind a careful horse, to fulfill promises to the denizens of the woods and far out friends. The stop for a snow angel endeared this heavily, as did the coat placed on his loyal steed. This is a gorgeous, heartwarming rendition of a favorite Frost poem. A treasure, keepsake, I shall enjoy again and again. Susan Jeffers gave this poem such heart, and I thank her from the bottom of mine.
November 16, 2021
My exposure to poetry have always been rather limited. Consequently, I had come across this poem only as part of my post graduate studies. However, since then, it has burned like a white fire in my mind.
There are numerous interpretations available for this poem. One may read it and rediscover it with the ages. But despite the n-th read, it remains fresh. That’s the power of this poem.
That's the true strength, as it continually keeps the readers aware of the meaning of life~
"And miles to go before I sleep."
Read it. Please.
There are numerous interpretations available for this poem. One may read it and rediscover it with the ages. But despite the n-th read, it remains fresh. That’s the power of this poem.
That's the true strength, as it continually keeps the readers aware of the meaning of life~
"And miles to go before I sleep."
Read it. Please.
January 10, 2024
Absolutely beautiful, this PJ Lynch edition. My favourite illustrator, if I'm forced to choose but one.
I have to thank my GR friend Abigail for mentioning the one illustrated by Susan Jeffers - it's on OpenLibrary (https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24016...) and it's also beautiful.
Try both. The poem's worth reading several times this winter. :) And it's super short, so there's no excuse.
I have to thank my GR friend Abigail for mentioning the one illustrated by Susan Jeffers - it's on OpenLibrary (https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24016...) and it's also beautiful.
Try both. The poem's worth reading several times this winter. :) And it's super short, so there's no excuse.
December 13, 2014
This book was siting on a coffee table at a house I was visiting family at, so I picked it up to see what it was, and read through the whole short book. Beautifully illustrated, the pictures with the corresponding lines of poetry are almost magical, and kept we pulled in to a beautiful ending. I really enjoyed this one.
January 7, 2022
One of my favorite poems
I love this poem, Robert Frost is an author I try to read at least one poem of every year since I was thirteen. This is one of my favorites of his and the artwork is a beautiful added bonus to the familiar words. Perfect reading for the winter holidays. Five stars.
I love this poem, Robert Frost is an author I try to read at least one poem of every year since I was thirteen. This is one of my favorites of his and the artwork is a beautiful added bonus to the familiar words. Perfect reading for the winter holidays. Five stars.
October 18, 2015
I had not read Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" in decades. I memorized the poem back in grade school, and it is fun to see how much my daughter loves this book!
August 22, 2023
I read this yesterday in honor of Robert Frost's birthday. I love the illustrations and the way this poem makes me feel no matter how many times I read it.
November 16, 2021
This is one of the most well-known and extensively anthologized short pieces of Frost.
The poem has a lyrical frame, and is contemplative in tone and movement. The setting is idyllic, one which belongs to the world of nature. The subject matter of the poem is simple -- it is the narrative of the scene of the woods and the conditions under which the narrator has stopped there.
But, behind this ostensible straightforwardness there runs a connotation which is across-the-board in its effects. This is one of the most noiselessly moving of Frost’s lyrics, employs its grand craftsmanship to come to a culmination of responsibility: the promises to be kept, the obligations to be satisfied.
The action of the piece starts in the middle of an incident, at a point where it nears the climax of an experience. However, in undertones, the experience ceases to be personal, and acquires universal proportions — it is not restricted to the personal level.
That is, the shift in the emphasis, the change from a personal realm of experience to a universal becomes known as the poem proceeds.
As the poem progresses, the personal merges with the universal, the pacific with the general.
This has been brought about by a shift in the emphasis, the rhythm, the meter, the rhyming, the tone and everything about the poem’s technique. Certainly, the form and the substance of the poem are not two disconnected things, these are one and the same, each drawing on the other for its efficacy.
One of the remarkable things about the poem is that Frost makes the tone and modus operandi of it conveys the meaning he wants to put through.
The peculiarity of Frost is that he creates voice tones. In this poem the voice is that of the speaker:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
The voice is so tranquil and undemanding; it is so clear in tone and movement that it can be mistaken to be a prose utterance. It indeed is, if we forget that it is metrical form. It may be the voice of a person talking in a natural way — in the natural rhythms and speech.
Now, the lines are neither to be read strictly in the metrical rhythmic order nor as ordinary speech, but in a special way, by accommodation adjustment, between meters. The speech is the living voice of a person — a dramatic character. There is the pattern of a dramatic speaker’s voice in the rhythms.
Now, in the poem, there is incident, setting and character, and the character has a distinct tone of voice. But in order that the speech may be dramatic there must be action.
At the commencement of the poem there is one character — the man talking.
“Whose woods these are I think I know.”
Soon a reference is made to a second person, “His house in the village though.”
Consequently there is developed a dialogue context, the second character playing the role of an oblique speaker.
At the launch of the second stanza there comes a third character — “My little horse.”
The horse is a character in the sense that it contributes to the dramatic stress of the speech:
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is mistake...
The shaking of the harness bells is a way in which the horse can deal with the speaker with a question. Unlike the second character whose presence is only felt, the horse is an actuality — it exists with the narrator in material terms. Thus the real opposition—the dramatic disagreement—in the poem is between the speaker and the horse, and not the speaker and the ‘unobserved somebody’.
And, the opposition is profound.
Whereas the speaker is a romantic, lost in the enormity of nature, the horse is a realist and prompts his rider to take a pragmatic course of action and not get lost in schmaltzy ruminations.
It is this opposition — character interaction— that gives “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” the force of a dramatic utterance, though the poem is written in the tradition of the romantic nature lyric. Nature here has a dramatic function to sub serve. It acts as a background to the action.
The sound of “The sweep of easy wind and downy flake” is in tune with the speaker’s voice, a voice mysterious, somewhat terrifying.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
In the darkest evening of the year, amid the winter snows, stopping by the woods, alone, even for a moment, must be terrifying indeed. When the horse reminds the speaker of this by giving his harness bells a shake, he springs into life from the reverie, and thinks of the promises he has to keep.
“And miles to go before I sleep” is a symbol for life’s journey, which journey must end sometime in eternal sleep.
The poet here may be thinking of his obligations to himself, to his family and children, to his fellowmen, for the benefits he has received from them.
And, in order to keep all the promises, he will have to travel a long distance, to work a great deal. In the winter evening not only is he drawn by the beauty of these woods but also by the craving to stop struggling, to give up all the duties and pledges that life is made up of, and just lie down in peaceful death.
But the horse makes him think of the promises he has to keep, and not wish for death.
The poet replicates - I must keep my promises, I have many more miles to go before tonight’s sleep brings me rest, before the final sleep gives me everlasting serenity relief from the chaos and lumber and responsibilities of my life.
The poem is exclusive in the minimalism of language. Monosyllabic words preponderate in the poem. The use of the symbolistic technique is masterly. The use and treatment of rhymes is also masterly.
Commenting on the rhyme-scheme of the poem, a critic writes: “In ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’ Frost took a long change. He decided to rhyme not two lines in each stanza, but three. Not even Frost could have sustained that much rhyme in a long poem. He would have known instantly, therefore when he took the original chance, that he was going to write a short poem. He would have had that foretaste of it. So the first stanza emerged rhymed, a-a b-a. And with the sure sense that this was to be a short poem, he decided to take an additional chance and to redouble: in English three rhymes in four lines is more enough: there is no need to rhyme the fourth line. For the fun of it, however, Frost set himself to pick up that loose rhyme and to weave it into the pattern, thereby accepting the all but impossible burden of quadruple rhyme. The miracle is that it worked. Every word and every rhyme fall into place, as naturally and as inevitably, as if there were no rhymes restricting the poet’s choices.”
Still the rhyming of the poem is neither strained nor palpable. The lines flow without seeming artificial. This is the secret of the success of the poem.
Generation piled upon generations of readers have been utterly moved by the last quatrain of the lyric –
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…..
The poem has a lyrical frame, and is contemplative in tone and movement. The setting is idyllic, one which belongs to the world of nature. The subject matter of the poem is simple -- it is the narrative of the scene of the woods and the conditions under which the narrator has stopped there.
But, behind this ostensible straightforwardness there runs a connotation which is across-the-board in its effects. This is one of the most noiselessly moving of Frost’s lyrics, employs its grand craftsmanship to come to a culmination of responsibility: the promises to be kept, the obligations to be satisfied.
The action of the piece starts in the middle of an incident, at a point where it nears the climax of an experience. However, in undertones, the experience ceases to be personal, and acquires universal proportions — it is not restricted to the personal level.
That is, the shift in the emphasis, the change from a personal realm of experience to a universal becomes known as the poem proceeds.
As the poem progresses, the personal merges with the universal, the pacific with the general.
This has been brought about by a shift in the emphasis, the rhythm, the meter, the rhyming, the tone and everything about the poem’s technique. Certainly, the form and the substance of the poem are not two disconnected things, these are one and the same, each drawing on the other for its efficacy.
One of the remarkable things about the poem is that Frost makes the tone and modus operandi of it conveys the meaning he wants to put through.
The peculiarity of Frost is that he creates voice tones. In this poem the voice is that of the speaker:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
The voice is so tranquil and undemanding; it is so clear in tone and movement that it can be mistaken to be a prose utterance. It indeed is, if we forget that it is metrical form. It may be the voice of a person talking in a natural way — in the natural rhythms and speech.
Now, the lines are neither to be read strictly in the metrical rhythmic order nor as ordinary speech, but in a special way, by accommodation adjustment, between meters. The speech is the living voice of a person — a dramatic character. There is the pattern of a dramatic speaker’s voice in the rhythms.
Now, in the poem, there is incident, setting and character, and the character has a distinct tone of voice. But in order that the speech may be dramatic there must be action.
At the commencement of the poem there is one character — the man talking.
“Whose woods these are I think I know.”
Soon a reference is made to a second person, “His house in the village though.”
Consequently there is developed a dialogue context, the second character playing the role of an oblique speaker.
At the launch of the second stanza there comes a third character — “My little horse.”
The horse is a character in the sense that it contributes to the dramatic stress of the speech:
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is mistake...
The shaking of the harness bells is a way in which the horse can deal with the speaker with a question. Unlike the second character whose presence is only felt, the horse is an actuality — it exists with the narrator in material terms. Thus the real opposition—the dramatic disagreement—in the poem is between the speaker and the horse, and not the speaker and the ‘unobserved somebody’.
And, the opposition is profound.
Whereas the speaker is a romantic, lost in the enormity of nature, the horse is a realist and prompts his rider to take a pragmatic course of action and not get lost in schmaltzy ruminations.
It is this opposition — character interaction— that gives “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” the force of a dramatic utterance, though the poem is written in the tradition of the romantic nature lyric. Nature here has a dramatic function to sub serve. It acts as a background to the action.
The sound of “The sweep of easy wind and downy flake” is in tune with the speaker’s voice, a voice mysterious, somewhat terrifying.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
In the darkest evening of the year, amid the winter snows, stopping by the woods, alone, even for a moment, must be terrifying indeed. When the horse reminds the speaker of this by giving his harness bells a shake, he springs into life from the reverie, and thinks of the promises he has to keep.
“And miles to go before I sleep” is a symbol for life’s journey, which journey must end sometime in eternal sleep.
The poet here may be thinking of his obligations to himself, to his family and children, to his fellowmen, for the benefits he has received from them.
And, in order to keep all the promises, he will have to travel a long distance, to work a great deal. In the winter evening not only is he drawn by the beauty of these woods but also by the craving to stop struggling, to give up all the duties and pledges that life is made up of, and just lie down in peaceful death.
But the horse makes him think of the promises he has to keep, and not wish for death.
The poet replicates - I must keep my promises, I have many more miles to go before tonight’s sleep brings me rest, before the final sleep gives me everlasting serenity relief from the chaos and lumber and responsibilities of my life.
The poem is exclusive in the minimalism of language. Monosyllabic words preponderate in the poem. The use of the symbolistic technique is masterly. The use and treatment of rhymes is also masterly.
Commenting on the rhyme-scheme of the poem, a critic writes: “In ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’ Frost took a long change. He decided to rhyme not two lines in each stanza, but three. Not even Frost could have sustained that much rhyme in a long poem. He would have known instantly, therefore when he took the original chance, that he was going to write a short poem. He would have had that foretaste of it. So the first stanza emerged rhymed, a-a b-a. And with the sure sense that this was to be a short poem, he decided to take an additional chance and to redouble: in English three rhymes in four lines is more enough: there is no need to rhyme the fourth line. For the fun of it, however, Frost set himself to pick up that loose rhyme and to weave it into the pattern, thereby accepting the all but impossible burden of quadruple rhyme. The miracle is that it worked. Every word and every rhyme fall into place, as naturally and as inevitably, as if there were no rhymes restricting the poet’s choices.”
Still the rhyming of the poem is neither strained nor palpable. The lines flow without seeming artificial. This is the secret of the success of the poem.
Generation piled upon generations of readers have been utterly moved by the last quatrain of the lyric –
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…..
July 28, 2016
One of Frost’s most haunting and lucid illustrations of his resolution to death is in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923). Written in the first person, the voice of the poet is expressed through the speaker, who, when travelling home on a winter’s night, is compelled to pull up his horse and gaze towards some woods as they “fill up with snow”. Seemingly transfixed, on “the darkest evening of the year”, the poet is positioned between the woods and a frozen lake, alluding to Dante’s “Inferno” in “The Divine Comedy”, echoed in his own poem “Fire and Ice”. Frost is clearly contemplating death here, and in the alliterative lines of the third stanza he writes “The only other sound’s the sweep, of easy wind and downy flake”, and the reader is almost falling into the snowy woods with the poet, the woods that are “lovely, dark and deep”. Before he reaches this point of no return, he is alerted back to reality by the harness bells of his horse. Shaken from his oneiric melancholy, the poet becomes the speaker again and suggests a resumption of his journey, which he repeats, “And miles to go before I sleep”. He has promises to keep, but the greater issue is whether he will indeed ‘keep’ his life (Poirier, 1977). Frost has been described as a poet of ‘rejected invitations’ (Brower, 1963). The alluring darkness of the woods and the underlying inference of winter sleep, represent powerful invitations, rejected by the speaker who pulls himself back, with the help of his horse, from the brink. The latter echoic line received a mixed response; Laurie Lee refers to the ”shattering repetitions” and “gauche imperfections” as his very reasons for including the poem in the 2006 edition of Lifelines; and Christopher Smart (Hamilton. 2011) refers to this echo in terms of a blues repetition as the “soul of the voice”. Frost extrapolates a cavernous image of the deep, dark abyss of the woods, to that of the distance remaining of the speaker’s life.
Frost’s curiosity in the hereafter is emphasised in the final verse of “Away” (1920):
And I may return
If dissatisfied
With what I learn
From having died.
A sense of his agnosticism here is tempered with a statement made whilst on a peripatetic amble with John Lynen, when he said “You know, there is nothing after this” (Lynen, 1960).
The conception of death was created by man, and this is illustrated powerfully in “Range-Finding” (1916). A field, the natural habitat of insects, birds, and the like, has become man’s battlefield. Shots are fired to test the distances that the gun sights need to be set to. These shots strike the field’s growth, and create little disturbance, unlike the devastation were they to be met by human flesh. A spider, seeing its web vibrate, rushes to it, hoping for prey, but finding nothing, withdraws. The creatures of the earth are oblivious to the concerns of men. The ravages of war can only arrest the progress of nature temporarily. A battlefield grows back in time, man does not, endorsing the lack of purpose of man’s conflict as much as its lack of meaning in nature. At the same time, this very distance between man and all other orders and species is emphasised definitively by the human condition which gives man ‘ethical meaning’ according to Lynen. Unlike nature, which merely exists, man has developed historically through a paradigm of right and wrong, and as such has found justification for killing, and so to war.
Frost, neither a soldier, nor considered a war poet, wrote evocatively on the subject, of note regarding his friend and kindred spirit Edward Thomas (1878-1917), in “To E.T.” (1923). Thomas died in 1917 at the battle of Arras, after Frost had returned to the United States. They met when Frost and his family moved to England in 1912. Frost encouraged Thomas to write poetry, and he went on to publish seventy five poems before his death on the battlefield. This event is addressed in Frost’s lament to his friend:
…..when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me
But now for me than you – the other way.
How over, though, for even me who knew
….
If I was not to speak of it to you
His overtly cathartic sense of loss is profound, deeply personal and different to his other poems concerning death. Frost’s own life was filled with tragic loss; his father died when he was eleven, followed by three of his children, including his son who committed suicide, and his wife. These must have all racked up a heavy mental and spiritual burden which he carried for most of his life, and undoubtedly would have influenced much of his work in one way or another. Unlike many of his generation, Robert Frost (1874-1963), had a long life, and like many others who survived that time, he witnessed and endured much personal tragedy. In his own way he wrote about it all, whereas most are not able to do that. His poetry haunts, intrigues and engages through his invitation to listen in on a conversation he was having with himself. (When time is spent, eternity begins). (Helen Hunt Jackson. 1830-1885).
Frost’s curiosity in the hereafter is emphasised in the final verse of “Away” (1920):
And I may return
If dissatisfied
With what I learn
From having died.
A sense of his agnosticism here is tempered with a statement made whilst on a peripatetic amble with John Lynen, when he said “You know, there is nothing after this” (Lynen, 1960).
The conception of death was created by man, and this is illustrated powerfully in “Range-Finding” (1916). A field, the natural habitat of insects, birds, and the like, has become man’s battlefield. Shots are fired to test the distances that the gun sights need to be set to. These shots strike the field’s growth, and create little disturbance, unlike the devastation were they to be met by human flesh. A spider, seeing its web vibrate, rushes to it, hoping for prey, but finding nothing, withdraws. The creatures of the earth are oblivious to the concerns of men. The ravages of war can only arrest the progress of nature temporarily. A battlefield grows back in time, man does not, endorsing the lack of purpose of man’s conflict as much as its lack of meaning in nature. At the same time, this very distance between man and all other orders and species is emphasised definitively by the human condition which gives man ‘ethical meaning’ according to Lynen. Unlike nature, which merely exists, man has developed historically through a paradigm of right and wrong, and as such has found justification for killing, and so to war.
Frost, neither a soldier, nor considered a war poet, wrote evocatively on the subject, of note regarding his friend and kindred spirit Edward Thomas (1878-1917), in “To E.T.” (1923). Thomas died in 1917 at the battle of Arras, after Frost had returned to the United States. They met when Frost and his family moved to England in 1912. Frost encouraged Thomas to write poetry, and he went on to publish seventy five poems before his death on the battlefield. This event is addressed in Frost’s lament to his friend:
…..when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me
But now for me than you – the other way.
How over, though, for even me who knew
….
If I was not to speak of it to you
His overtly cathartic sense of loss is profound, deeply personal and different to his other poems concerning death. Frost’s own life was filled with tragic loss; his father died when he was eleven, followed by three of his children, including his son who committed suicide, and his wife. These must have all racked up a heavy mental and spiritual burden which he carried for most of his life, and undoubtedly would have influenced much of his work in one way or another. Unlike many of his generation, Robert Frost (1874-1963), had a long life, and like many others who survived that time, he witnessed and endured much personal tragedy. In his own way he wrote about it all, whereas most are not able to do that. His poetry haunts, intrigues and engages through his invitation to listen in on a conversation he was having with himself. (When time is spent, eternity begins). (Helen Hunt Jackson. 1830-1885).
December 30, 2011
When I was in high school, my English teacher made my class memorize random poems. I don’t remember why we had to do this, but I do remember analyzing and memorizing “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which soon became one of my favorite poems of all time. It stayed with me long after high school, and in my graduate program for education, I made an iMovie of the poem depicting the scenery while also depicting the chain rhyme on screen. I still have that iMovie and I occasionally show it in classes when I go to teach poetry, so imagine my surprise when I came across this hardcover, illustrated book of my favorite poem! I stood in the bookstore and read it; absolutely amazed with the illustrations and the interpretation of the poem, which is a bit different from my own interpretation, but alas, I decided not to buy the book, not then anyway. Of course, I thought about it often and kept thinking of going back to get it, but never did. Then Christmas came, and my wonderful friend bought it for me! I was, and am, extremely excited because it’s such a beautiful book! And, I plan to use it in the classroom as well, making poetry more fun for my students as I read it to them and show them the pictures… and then the real analysis will begin. I think this is one of the best picture books I’ve ever seen, and I highly recommend it, for both the young and the old...
To read my full review upon release (1/31/12):
http://wp.me/p1jhaj-1F4
To read my full review upon release (1/31/12):
http://wp.me/p1jhaj-1F4
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