Weekly Watering Hole #5

Hello poets,

Welcome back. Thunder is rumbling and tumbling outside and I'm in the mood for some Robert Frost, master of understatement, effortless rhyme, and subtly poignant prose. I often wonder if Frost, London, and Thoreau would've been fast friends with their nostalgic tendencies and love for the woods. I think so. Anyway, out of my head and onto the thread:

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.

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Clip of the bio from Poets.org:

"Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England--and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time--Frost is anything but merely a regional poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony."

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This is and will always be one of my favorite poems. The last stanza stirs in me emotions of longing, loneliness, and quiet understanding. A bit of heartbreak too. Who lives in the house? What promises? What lonesome journey is the rider on?

Frost has always been one of my favorite poets. To me the last two lines have separate meetings. The first line literally means he has miles to go that night before he's able to go to sleep. The second line is as though he's reflecting on what he just said and analogizes it to mean that he has many years and miles to go before he dies with promises to make and promises to keep in the meantime.

Frost is one of my favorite poets as well. I love his rhyme, it seems so unforced and well written. I love this poem deeply.

One of my favorites as well... was one of the first poets we studied in middle school.