by Kerry Michael Wood

Created on: November 16, 2011   Last Updated: March 27, 2012

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is arguably the best-known poem written by Robert Frost. Frost is one of America’s best-known and loved poets of the 20th century. This poem, written in simple language but with great profundity, is an example of what gives Frost his broad appeal both to poetry experts and to casual readers.

The poem consists of four quatrains rhymed AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD, and the rhythm is iambic tetrameter. The repeated lines 15 and 16 invite a symbolic interpretation of the whole poem.

In the opening quatrain, the speaker describes his odd decision to stop his homeward progress in a horse-drawn carriage so that he can observe a scene of beauty. The woods he watches fill with snow are “lovely, dark, and deep.” Their owner lives in the village and will not observe the speaker’s stopping there. Thus the speaker will not have to explain his reasons. 

In stanza two  he speculates that his little horse must think it queer to be halted when there is no farmhouse in sight. The horse, shaking its head, adds to the visual imagery along with the woods and an iced over lake on a dark evening.

In stanza three, the speaker attributes the horse’s head shaking that rings his harness bells to confusion—“To ask if there is some mistake.” The bells add their music to the “sweep/ Of easy wind and downy flake.” Those words contribute to the tone of aesthetic appreciation that the human experiences but which is lost on the horse. There has been a tonal beauty since the beginning in the near alliteration of “Whose woods” and “watch woods.” This prepares the reader for the relaxed tone of “lovely," and the hint of mystery that attaches to "dark and  deep.”

The stopping has been necessarily brief. The reversal word "But” signals the speaker’s resumption of action. One might perhaps think that the speaker had considered lying down in those woods and letting the snow cover him till he became one with the frozen lake. However, he has “promises to keep.” How much more effective is the positive connotation of “promises” than those of related words like “obligations” or “duties” or “responsibilities.” There is a suggestion of goodness - even divinity - in the etymological meaning of things "sent forward" (pro + missus). For one thing, he can’t leave his horse to be covered in the beautiful, downy, cold snowflakes. He must be unharnessed, comforted and housed - things that are positively promising.

Finally come the identical closing lines:

And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.

Line 15 reads literally. The speaker has a good distance to travel before he can go to his warm bed. But line 16 speaks volumes more. The miles of the previous line involve all those duties and responsibilities—the promises mentioned earlier. We have come to appreciate and agree with his urge to stay in the beauty of the wintry woods. But he, like all humanity, has life and things to do before retiring to the sleep of death.

The amazing profundity of the poem is accomplished in the simplest of ways. There is only one three-syllable word – “promises”—if we pronounce “evening” as two syllables. The poet has painted a moving picture of a horse and a human and swirling snow. He has also presented a choice of resignation to darkness and beauty or persistence in a life of dedication to the promises expected of him.

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