Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening | |
---|---|
by Robert Lee Frost | |
Written | June 1922 |
First published in | New Hampshire |
Meter | iambic tetrameter |
Rhyme scheme | AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD |
Publication date | 1923 |
Full text | |
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening at Wikisource |
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. [1]Contents
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem by Robert Frost, written in 1922, and published in 1923 in his New Hampshire volume. Imagery, personification, and repetition are prominent in the work. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost called it "my best bid for remembrance". [2]
Frost wrote the poem in June 1922 at his house in Shaftsbury, Vermont. He had been up the entire night writing the long poem "New Hampshire" from the poetry collection of the same name, and had finally finished when he realized morning had come. He went out to view the sunrise and suddenly got the idea for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". [2] He wrote the new poem "about the snowy evening and the little horse as if I'd had a hallucination" in just "a few minutes without strain." [3]
The text of the poem reflects the thoughts of a lone wagon driver (the narrator), pausing at dusk in his travel to watch snow falling in the woods. It ends with him reminding himself that, despite the loveliness of the view, "I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep."[ citation needed ]
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter in the Rubaiyat stanza created by Edward FitzGerald, who adopted the style from Hakim Omar Khayyam, the 12th-century Persian poet and mathematician. Each verse (save the last) follows an AABA rhyming scheme, with the following verse's A line rhyming with that verse's B line, which is a chain rhyme (another example is the terza rima used in Dante's Inferno ). Overall, the rhyme scheme is AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD. [4]
The poem begins with a moment of quiet introspection, which is reflected in the soft sounds of w's and th's, as well as double ll's. In the second stanza, harder sounds — like k and qu — begin to break the whisper. As the narrator's thought is disrupted by the horse in the third stanza, a hard g is used. [5]
An oft-repeated story holds that Frost wrote the first line of the last stanza without an Oxford comma: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep" and an editor or typesetter added a comma: "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep". As can be seen (and as is pointed out by English literature teachers), the presence of the comma makes a significant change in the meaning of the line: "the woods are lovely because they are dark and deep" becomes "the woods are lovely, and dark, and deep". Frost is said to have ordered that it be removed. [6] After his death, another editor (re)inserted it. [7] [ better source needed ]
In the early morning of November 23, 1963, Sid Davis of Westinghouse Broadcasting reported the arrival of President John F. Kennedy's casket at the White House. Since Frost was one of the President's favorite poets, Davis concluded his report with a passage from this poem but was overcome with emotion as he signed off. [8] [9]
At the funeral of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, on October 3, 2000, his eldest son, Justin, rephrased the last stanza of this poem in his eulogy: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. He has kept his promises and earned his sleep." [10]
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, towards his later years, kept a book of Robert Frost close to him, even at his bedside table as he lay dying. One page of the book featured the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", and the last four lines were underlined. [11]
Frost's poem, and specifically its last stanza, was featured prominently in US President Joe Biden's 2008 autobiography Promises to Keep, the name of which is derived from the poem's third-to-last line.[ clarification needed ] [12]
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.
Poetry analysis is the process of investigating the form of a poem, content, structural semiotics and history in an informed way, with the aim of heightening one's own and others' understanding and appreciation of the work.
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
A rubāʿī, or chahārgāna, is a poem or a verse of a poem in Persian poetry in the form of a quatrain, consisting of four lines.
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New Hampshire is a 1923 poetry collection by Robert Frost, which won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
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A masculine ending and feminine ending or weak ending are terms used in prosody, the study of verse form. "masculine ending" refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable. "feminine ending" is its opposite, describing a line ending in a stressless syllable. This definition is applicable in most cases; see below, however, for a more refined characterization.
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Sleep is a composition for a cappella choir by Eric Whitacre, with lyrics by Charles Anthony Silvestri. He composed it in 2000, setting a poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. When the lyrics were found still under copyright, Whitacre enlisted Silvestri to write new lyrics to the existing music.
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In fact, the woods are not, as the Lathem edition would have it (with its obtuse emendation of a comma after the second adjective in line 13), merely 'lovely, dark, and deep.' Rather, as Frost in all the editions he supervised intended, they are 'lovely, [i.e.] dark and deep'; the loveliness thereby partakes of the depth and darkness which make the woods so ominous.