Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening’

Robert Frost’s ‘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.

This poem has been undoubtedly my most favourite poem ever since I read it in my school days. The beauty of this poem lies in its simplicity. Frost wrote this poem in June 1922. He was inspired by the sight of a sunrise to write this poem, after spending the whole night writing a long poem. This is also one of Frost’s favourite among his own poems. In a letter to Lord Louis Untermeyer he called it "my best bid for remembrance."
The situation of the poet is of a person caught between Nature and civilization. The speaker is fascinated by the woods but he cannot stop here for a long time he has some obligations; he cannot ignore the pull of the civilized world. He has two choices before him just like he had in ‘The Road not Taken’.
Critics have interpreted the poem from their own point of view. The debate still goes on. Some have given it negative shades by stating that it is a poem of death, with the woods symbolizing suicide and poet resisting it. Herbert R. Coursen, Jr., has interpreted the poet as Santa Claus, who has to fulfill the promise of delivering the gifts.
It has also been argued that the repetition of the last line is also significant. The first time the poet writes: “And miles to go before I sleep”, he wants to suggest that he has many duties to be fulfilled till he reaches his house and can rest. But when he repeats the line, it has been taken to mean that the poet symbolically refers to life and death – the poet suggests that he has a long time to live before he dies.