Poetry Month: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

[mysid]

When I was a young student, and teachers and textbooks tried to kill my inate childish love of poetry by forcing me to read poems with unfamiliar language I could not understand, with obscure meanings that I could not glean without guidance, and rhyme schemes that I had to chart, Robert Frost came to my rescue. He wrote poems that anyone can read, understand, and enjoy. Later, I came to see that there could be hidden depths in his poems, but somehow, that didn't take away from their simplicity; it merely added another layer that one could enjoy if one saw it there.

Here's one of my favorites:

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 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.

Comments

[secretsolitaire.livejournal.com]

Another lovely poem. I've always loved that last stanza especially.

You're right about the simplicity and accessibility of Frost -- poetry doesn't have to be flowery or complicated to be meaningful. I too was frustrated when I needed 45 footnotes to "get" a poem.