Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost, New Hampshire (1923)
One of Frost's most famous poems, on pausing beside dark woods on the darkest evening of the year.
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About this text
Frost said he wrote this poem in a single sitting after staying up all night working on a longer poem, watching the sun rise over his farm — though like many of his accounts of his own writing, that story may be partly polished for effect. It was collected in New Hampshire (1923), the same book as "Fire and Ice," and Frost later called it the poem he would most like to have remembered by.
Each stanza's third line doesn't rhyme with the other three — except that its sound becomes the rhyme for the next stanza, an interlocking chain that continues until the final stanza breaks the pattern by rhyming all four lines together. That change is easiest to notice by copying the poem stanza by stanza and reading each one's end sounds aloud.
What to watch for
- 1 semicolon: a semicolon joins two complete thoughts that belong together, a pause longer than a comma but shorter than a period.
- 1 apostrophe: sort each one into possession (the shepherd's staff) or a missing letter (don't = do not).
- Longest word: "farmhouse" (9 letters). Try spelling it aloud once before reaching it.
- 16 lines averaging about 7 words each. A comfortable line length for a single sitting.
Full text (reference)
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.