Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Revisited)

 

by Pa Rock

Poetry Appreciator

This morning I had planned to write a blog entry about Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Floridian who is currently serving, at the tender age of twenty-five, as the youngest member of Congress.  Congressman Frost has recently said some mean things about Florida's Republican governor which merit repeating far and wide.  However, before I could get that posting completed (or even started), it was derailed by a story about another famous American named "Frost," this time New England poet Robert Frost.

(Tomorrow I will try to get back to Maxwell Alejandro Frost.)

Robert Frost, the poet, died on January 29th, 1963, just barely two years after delivering a recitation of one of his poems - from memory - at John F. Kennedy's presidential inauguration.   JFK followed the famed poet to the grave later that same year. Cleary Robert Frost was a giant among American literary figures.

This morning I saw a note in "The Writer's Almanac" which mentioned that one of Robert Frost's most memorable poems, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was first published in "The New Republic" magazine one hundred years ago today.  It's a lovely poem about a farmer who stops his wagon to enjoy a snowfall one winter's evening.  Robert Frost said the poem was his "best bid for remembrance," and over the years it has become an American classic.

On Monday, July 6th, 2009, while this blog was just in its second year of publication, I started a semi-regular feature called "Monday's Poetry" in which I presented and talked about a poem that had left an impression on me.  The first poem that I spotlighted in the new feature was Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."  Cleary a July posting was not the ideal time to post a poem about a New England snowfall, but it was a special poem to me, and I wanted to use it to inaugurate the blog's new emphasis on poetry.

In that posting I wrote about two sisters - Linda and Susan Merchant - with whom I had been friends when I was in high school.  Linda was my age and Susan was a year younger, and we would often walk several blocks to school together in the mornings.   Early in our senior year, our speech teacher, Jennibel Paul, came to school one day with a large tape recorder and announced a project that would require each student in the small class to make a voice tape of themselves reading a favorite poem, and then at the end of the year we would tape it again and compare the two renditions.   Hopefully some improvement over the course of the school year would be evident.  I don't remember what poem I chose, but I do remember Linda's - it was the aforementioned poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Then, just a few weeks later, there was a horrible car crash in our little town that killed two sets of sisters, the Todd girls and the Merchant girls.  It was one of those awful events that rocked the entire community and which, nearly sixty years later, is still remembered and talked about by many people around town.    After the funerals had been held and things finally began to settle own, Mrs. Paul canceled that speech project and gave the tape to the Merchant family, something very tangible with which to remember their oldest daughter.  It was likely their only keepsake of her voice.

The poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" speaks to the ultimate reality of death with Frost's haunting refrain about having promises to keep - 'and miles to go before I sleep."

When Linda Merchant made her voice recording of that beautiful poem by Robert Frost, she had fewer miles to go than any of us realized.

Here is the very brief poem in its entirety:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods are these I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me topping 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 false.

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.