Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

I've always loved the rhyme pattern of this poem:

A A B A

B B C B

C C D C

D D D D

Each verse leads on to the next, until the final one, where the repetition of sounds brings a satisfying closure.

Makes it easy to memorize as well.

One interpretation of this poem (the one I feel suits it best) is that the man is considering a suitable place to end his life. I'm pretty anti 'doom and gloom' when it comes down to it, but there is something truly beautiful about that place 'between the woods and frozen lake' where you can just stop worrying about your obligations to the world. You'll not be discovered or rescued, and you will not tarnish the loveliness of your surroundings. You can leave your horse and be alone with the wind. If only you could ignore the miles and just sleep. I would like to think the man does continue... we all have promises to keep I suppose.

Another interpretation is something about a busy guy observing the beauty of nature... wow, that just sucks. Besides, I know a person who feels pretty strongly about the first interpretation...........CAPTAIN OBVIOUS.

I've lost it tonight and the question that begs to be asked is have I ever had it? Walking down the deserted street at five in the morning, clutching a bag that holds the muffin that I ordered at Perkins not to eat, but so that I'd have an excuse to sit in the booth for two hours writing furiously and drinking coffee. I lost count of how many cups I drank, using it to fuel the mania that has raged inside me for the past week now. The muffin sat there untouched, but I brought it home so that my 1.50 wouldn't be wasted. Those lines popped into my head. That's the only poem I know by heart, a required recitation at the end of my senior year in high school, and I had two miles to walk before I got home.

So I started from the beginning, reciting aloud. his house is in the village though It hits me, I'm one of those crazy people wandering at night muttering to themselves. But the sound of my own voice was so reassuring to me, it was a cadence to keep me sane so that the fear wouldn't set in. I knew that once it did, I wouldn't be able to take it, I would break from reality right then and there, and the fear was very very close...the only other sound's the sweep of easy wind...under the most benign of circumstances trees scare me.

I stop after a few recitations so that I won't be a crazy person talking to herself in the middle of the night. promises to keep But I continue to repeat it in my head. I stop when I see the sign for 18th street because I live on 11th which means that there was only 7/8 of a mile left to go.

There are few arquable alternatives to the concensus that this poem is a middle aged man's highly personal contemplation on death.

The tone of the poem is easily identifiable. The images of cold, quiet snow falling in a deep, dark wood temper feelings of gloom with a sort of passive calmness. The rider (which one could very likely equate with the poet himself) has stopped at the edge of the wood of his own volition, to observe the scene, and is indeed almost drawn to it.

In the second and third stanzas, the rider's horse fidgets nervously. This simple detail suggests life's gentle push to keep on going, making no room for impractical (or dangerous) stops along the way. This creates a contrast before which the woods appear to represent the cold sleepiness of death. The "sweep of easy wind // and downy flake" reinforce the muffled atmosphere.

The final stanza brings the poem's principle metaphor most glaringly to light, however. The equation of life to a physical journey with death is almost too obvious to mention, as is death to a restful sleep in the last two lines. The repetition of these two lines in conjunction with the rider's thought of "promises to keep" clearly indicates the poet's weariness. At this moment, with a long road still ahead of him, the dark glade seems to offer a dangerously tempting rest, from which he would not have to wake.

Altogether a very existential ending for a late Victorian Age poet like Frost. Although, life's struggles seem to present a meaningless, tiring effort, the poet resolves to continue on.