Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods
The Temptation of Freedom from Responsibility
How many of us have occasionally wanted to get away from it all for a while? Put our responsibilities to one side and just think about ourselves?
This seems to be the temptation facing the speaker in Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. He finds himself walking past some woodland on a cold winter’s evening, alone except for his horse, and he stops to admire the beauty of nature: “He will not see me stopping here/ To watch his woods fill up with snow”.
The individual referred to here is the landowner, and the speaker is confident he will not be spotted by him as “his house is in the village”, presumably some miles away. This immediately suggests that the woods are a mysterious place, far removed from the everyday lives and concerns epitomized by the village.
Danger in the Woods
A sense of danger is also established, most notably in the second stanza. The personification of the horse is an important technique, allowing the poet to introduce another point of view to the poem without breaking the man’s isolation: the horse almost acts as the voice of common sense, thinking it “queer/ To stop without a farmhouse near”.
The positive connotations of “snowy” – picturesque, clean, pure – are replaced in this stanza by words which are fraught with danger: the lake is “frozen”, and the speaker comments that this is the “darkest evening of the year”. This latter example may of course be purely literal, indicating that the poem is set just before Christmas, but may also suggest that the speaker is dwelling on some sad or depressing event.
Seduced By the Beauty of Nature
The horse continues to protest, shaking his harness bells to tell his companion that they must be on their way, but the speaker seems to find himself drawn into, and seduced by, the beauty of the woods. The tone and pace of the poem change at the end of the third stanza, slowing right down due to the assonance in lines 11 and 12:
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The use of the contraction to emphasise the sibilance of “sound’s the sweep” recreates the noise of the breeze moving through the snow-laden trees, and shows the peaceful, calm nature of this tranquil scene. Even the lexis has gentle connotations: the wind is “easy”, and that the snow is “downy” suggests that the speaker is becoming sleepy, and sees the snow as a comfortable blanket rather than something that could kill him if he spent the night here.
Back to Reality
Line 13 tells us that “The woods are lovely, dark and deep”, suggesting that the speaker is being seduced by the woods despite knowing their danger. It seems his urge to lie down and forget all his troubles is strong here. However, he indicates a change of mind with the “But” at the beginning of line 14 – he realises that he has “promises to keep”, some kind of responsibility either to himself or to others that he must not forget. Thus the reality of the “village” with all its social obligations enters the mysterious world of the woods, where the speaker is free to stop for a while and simply be rather than do.
The speaker does seem to realise though that to forget those responsibilities permanently would represent the end of a meaningful life. The repetition of “And miles to go before I sleep” at the end of the poem indicates that the speaker is now ready to continue his journey, both through the woods to reach his destination, and through the rest of his life.
For further discussion of Frost's poems including Road Not Taken, Nothing Gold Can Stay, and Dust of Snow , please click on the appropriate link.
