"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem written in 1922 by Robert Frost, and published in 1923 in his New Hampshire volume. Imagery and personification are prominent in the work. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost called it "my best bid for remembrance".
Overview
Frost wrote the poem in June 1922 at his house in Shaftsbury, Vermont. He had been up the entire night writing the long poem "New Hampshire" and had finally finished when he realized morning had come. He went out to view the sunrise and suddenly got the idea for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". He wrote the new poem "about the snowy evening and the little horse as if I'd had a hallucination" in just "a few minutes without strain."
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter in the Rubaiyat stanza created by Edward Fitzgerald. Each verse (save the last) follows an a-a-b-a rhyming scheme, with the following verse's a's rhyming with that verse's b, which is a chain rhyme (another example is the terza rima used in Dante's Inferno.) Overall, the rhyme scheme is AABA-BBCB-CCDC-DDDD.
The text of the poem describes the thoughts of a lone rider, pausing at night in his travel to watch snow falling in the woods. It ends with him reminding himself that, despite the loveliness of the view, "I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep."
Use in eulogies
In the early morning of November 23, 1963, Sid Davis of Westinghouse Broadcasting reported the arrival of President John F. Kennedy's casket to the White House. As Frost was one of the President's favorite poets, Davis concluded his report with a passage from this poem but was overcome with emotion as he signed off.
At the funeral of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, on October 3, 2000, his eldest son Justin rephrased the last stanza of this poem in his eulogy: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. He has kept his promises and earned his sleep."
In other media
In Vladimir Nabokov's novel Pale Fire, the narrator references the poem directly, calling it "one of the greatest short poems in the English language, a poem that every American boy knows by heart".
American composer Randall Thompson included the poem in his choral work Frostiana: Seven Country Songs, which was originally conducted by Thompson with Frost in attendance. Another choral interpretation, titled Sleep, was written by American composer Eric Whitacre. Due to copyright, the text of the composition was re-written by Charles Anthony Silvestri to comply with the wishes of Frost's estate.
In the 1977 Cold War thriller Telefon, the last stanza is used as a trigger phrase to activate brainwashed sleeper agents.
In Quentin Tarantino's 2007 film Death Proof, the final stanza of the poem is used by 'Jungle' Julia as the secret phrase that her listeners must say to receive a lap dance from Julia's friend while they are out on the town.
Jawaharlal Nehru had copied the last stanza of the poem in his own hand, sometime before his death, and always kept it by his side.
In the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of the quests is named "Promises to Keep", after that phrase's appearance in the poem, which involves stealing a horse named Frost.
In the video game The Walking Dead: Season Two, the player receives an achievement titled "Miles to Go", for completing a chapter of the story in which the characters walk through a snowy wood.
In the TV series Elementary season one episode "Dean Man's Switch", Holmes is given a framed copy of the poem by Watson as an anniversary gift.
References
External links
- Frost, Robert, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Representative poetry (online ed.), University of Toronto . Text of the poem, along with the rhyming pattern.
- "Woods", Frost, Poets, UIUCÂ . Discussion and analysis of the poem.