On this day in history, March 7, 1923, Robert Frost’s poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, was published. My mother taught it to me when I was in the fifth grade – I needed something for school – and it was the first poem, I believe, I ever memorized after nursery rhymes.
Though Robert Frost spent much of his life in New England and a few years in England, he was born in San Francisco, California, in 1874.
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
I love the imagery of the quiet snow, the wind’s sweep and the tinkle of the bells. The narrator is drawn to the deep woods and the solitude, but reminded by his little horse they have places to go, responsibilities waiting. Frost refers to the responsibilities as “promises to keep” and to me that connotes a desire to accomplish, a willingness to go the miles “before I sleep.”
Mr. Frost graduated from high school in Massachusetts as a co-valedictorian and three years later married the woman who had been the other valedictorian, Elinor White. They had four children and struggled financially while farming in New England.
In 1912 he moved his family to England where he published his first work of poetry, A Boy’s Will in 1913, followed by North of Boston in 1914, which was well received in the United States. He returned to a New England farm at the start of World War I and continued to publish his poetry. A frequent instructor and lecturer at universities, he also was invited to speak at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
Do you have a favorite poet or poem? Did you learn it growing up, or in school? Perhaps it’s a new found treasure? Would love to know!
Comments 12
I enjoyed reading your post about Robert Frost. He was one of the greatest, but there are so many of his poems that were favorites. I still like “Birches” but “The Swing” by Robert Louis Stevenson will always be so dear to me. I memorized it in 3rd grade and loved to recite it at the top of my lungs as I swung to and fro on a swing– on of my favorite pastime as a little girl.
Isn’t it sweet that some of what we hold dearest to us is from our childhood? I went to grade school in San Diego, but don’t remember having to memorize poems until we moved to Oak Harbor, WA, and my mother suggested “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” for my fifth grade assignment. Besides it being a lovely, meaningful poem, I think that connection is one of the reasons it’s so dear to me
I like “Birches” a lot ~ my most recent connection to that poem is when hubs was in Afghanistan for the year of 2012 and we had a big snowstorm that turned into an ice storm and the neighbors cottonwood trees all lost many of their branches to our yard! The neighbors were very kind, cutting the branches into log-sized pieces, which we now use for firewood, and hauled away the debris!
I love your memory of the swing, reciting your favorite poem! Did you have braids? I did!
Rebecca, I love this poem by Frost and had not read it in years. And I love how the last line is repeated, as if the writer is brought back to reality from his brief respite of beauty in the snow and fatigue begins to set in. Lovely! One of my most memorable poems from my youth is “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. Such a tragic tale woven into beautiful verse. Unforgettable.
Oh, wow, Elaine! I’d never read The Highwayman” before! Very powerful and moving ~ I shan’t be forgetting it!
For me, it has always been Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est. The imagery and impact of that piece always hammered me. The doggerel of Henry Rollins, See an Angry Man Cry, etc, is another that I have always kept close.
I’m not familiar with Henry Rollins, but my two years of Latin in high school probably has stuck with me more than I realize! War is terrible, even if it is “pro patria mori.” Wilfred Owen’s description takes you right to the battle field. Praying for peace here. Thanks for stopping by!
Interesting story, but I’m glad it’s not true! :o) I do like the way it ends. Good old Pablo: “Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” Great to see you here!
When I teach this poem, I always tell my students about an interview Frost did where he was asked, “Why did you repeat the last two lines of the poem?” Some critics had suggested that it was about death, and one guy even said that it was the speaker of Frost’s poem contemplating suicide. Frost answered that there was no deeper meaning at all and that he just couldn’t think of anything else to put there.
I’ve found out that he didn’t really say that. He says it’s more to do with the rhyme scheme and how that repetition was his way of not being forced to have a fifth stanza. Since the third lines end-rhyme with the first, second, and fourth lines of the next stanzas, this was his way of kind of closing things off. I’ve always liked that rhyme pattern. I’ll probably still always tell my students that story though because I think it’s funny.
I don’t know if I have a favorite poem, but I like Pablo Neruda’s odes.
He really did, Pat! Thanks for stopping by!
Robert Frost knew how to capture the moment in beautiful terms. I always feel like I’m part of the scene when he writes his poetry.
I love this one, too, Debbie! And I love the line “I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence!” Thank you for sharing!
Rebecca, I too love Robert Frost poems. My favorite is The Road Not Taken.
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference