Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
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 sounds 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 the poem the poet who stopped by woods on a snowy evening and his feeling at the moment are vividly described. The horse felt puzzled when stopped at the moment, but he didn’t know it was the beauty and darkness of the woods that attracted the master. The persona cherished a deep love for nature, and when surrounded by nature, he felt perfectly contented. Probably he longed to die there, being lost in the bosom of nature. Thinking of the promises to keep, he felt obliged to go, to cover the long distance lies before him. In the first line—“Whose woods these are I think I know.”--- Frost turns normal word order around. Ordinary word order would have us say something like “I think I know whose woods these are. ” By moving woods to the start of the sentence, Frost gives it more prominence or power. In the second line, “His house is in the village though;” the last word make no logical sense on the surface meaning because “though” should make some contradiction to the statement before. So though here qualifies something left out as the stanza ends we learn something besides the speaker’s embarrassment; we learn his motive for stopping: “To watch his woods fill up with snow.” Frost’s language here is plain. Saying fill up contribute to the image made by the poet; his woods becomes a container which snow can fill. In the second stanza, picking up the here rhyme; tell us that the little horse must think it queer. Consider the word must in the line. We only claim that something must be true if we don’t know it for certain. When Frost writes “My little horse must think it queer,” he uses the doubtful must because he knows a human cannot mind read his horse. The persona attributes doubts to his horse because he himself believes it weird or eccentric to stop one’s horse for no good reason out in the middle of nowhere to watch snow falling in the darkness. This man’s uneasiness shows in his self-mockery: even his horse must think he’s crazy. As the stanza continues, the poet gives us more information in images that carry feeling. The road, we learn, passes between the woods and the frozen lake. Sometimes an image informs us by what it omits. While frozen ads cold to the poem, the line also increases the solitude of the scene: the lane runs between wood and lake only, no houses or factories here, no inns or filling stations, just these cold and natural things, on “The darkest evening of the year.” In the third stanza, the little horse does what horses do; he shudders or shakes, standing still in the cold night, and to the driver who still feels foolish pausing to gaze at snow in the woods, the horse’s jingling harness bells seem like the horse’s reproach. The jingling is another image---so far we’ve had images of sight (to watch), of touch (frozen lake), and of sound (bells)---and now the sound image multiply: “ the sweep/ Of easy wind and downy flake.” Notice that images often appeal to more than one sense. If frozen is an image of cold in frozen lake, it is an image of sight also, because we know what a frozen lake looks like. And the sweep is a swooshing sound, but it’s also a visual broom moving. By the end of the third stanza the poem has created a dramatic conflict, like a story or a play. The conflict lives in the mind of the speaker, who attributes one sides of his feeling to his horse; of course, it is the person who thinks it queer to pause where he pauses; at the same time it is the speaker who stops to gaze into the lovely beauty of the wood, exercising the other side of his feeling.
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 sounds 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 the poem the poet who stopped by woods on a snowy evening and his feeling at the moment are vividly described. The horse felt puzzled when stopped at the moment, but he didn’t know it was the beauty and darkness of the woods that attracted the master. The persona cherished a deep love for nature, and when surrounded by nature, he felt perfectly contented. Probably he longed to die there, being lost in the bosom of nature. Thinking of the promises to keep, he felt obliged to go, to cover the long distance lies before him. In the first line—“Whose woods these are I think I know.”--- Frost turns normal word order around. Ordinary word order would have us say something like “I think I know whose woods these are. ” By moving woods to the start of the sentence, Frost gives it more prominence or power. In the second line, “His house is in the village though;” the last word make no logical sense on the surface meaning because “though” should make some contradiction to the statement before. So though here qualifies something left out as the stanza ends we learn something besides the speaker’s embarrassment; we learn his motive for stopping: “To watch his woods fill up with snow.” Frost’s language here is plain. Saying fill up contribute to the image made by the poet; his woods becomes a container which snow can fill. In the second stanza, picking up the here rhyme; tell us that the little horse must think it queer. Consider the word must in the line. We only claim that something must be true if we don’t know it for certain. When Frost writes “My little horse must think it queer,” he uses the doubtful must because he knows a human cannot mind read his horse. The persona attributes doubts to his horse because he himself believes it weird or eccentric to stop one’s horse for no good reason out in the middle of nowhere to watch snow falling in the darkness. This man’s uneasiness shows in his self-mockery: even his horse must think he’s crazy. As the stanza continues, the poet gives us more information in images that carry feeling. The road, we learn, passes between the woods and the frozen lake. Sometimes an image informs us by what it omits. While frozen ads cold to the poem, the line also increases the solitude of the scene: the lane runs between wood and lake only, no houses or factories here, no inns or filling stations, just these cold and natural things, on “The darkest evening of the year.” In the third stanza, the little horse does what horses do; he shudders or shakes, standing still in the cold night, and to the driver who still feels foolish pausing to gaze at snow in the woods, the horse’s jingling harness bells seem like the horse’s reproach. The jingling is another image---so far we’ve had images of sight (to watch), of touch (frozen lake), and of sound (bells)---and now the sound image multiply: “ the sweep/ Of easy wind and downy flake.” Notice that images often appeal to more than one sense. If frozen is an image of cold in frozen lake, it is an image of sight also, because we know what a frozen lake looks like. And the sweep is a swooshing sound, but it’s also a visual broom moving. By the end of the third stanza the poem has created a dramatic conflict, like a story or a play. The conflict lives in the mind of the speaker, who attributes one sides of his feeling to his horse; of course, it is the person who thinks it queer to pause where he pauses; at the same time it is the speaker who stops to gaze into the lovely beauty of the wood, exercising the other side of his feeling.
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