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Unit 6: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

The notable exception to this pattern comes in the final stanza, where the third line rhymes Notes
with the previous two and is repeated as the fourth line.
Do not be fooled by the simple words and the easiness of the rhymes; this is a very difficult
form to achieve in English without debilitating a poem’s content with forced rhymes.

6.5 Commentary

This is a poem to be marvelled at and taken for granted. Like a big stone, like a body of water,
like a strong economy, however it was forged it seems that, once made, it has always been
there. Frost claimed that he wrote it in a single night-time sitting; it just came to him. Perhaps
one hot, sustained burst is the only way to cast such a complete object, in which form and
content, shape and meaning, are alloyed inextricably. One is tempted to read it, nod quietly
in recognition of its splendor and multivalent meaning, and just move on. But one must write
essays. Or study guides.
Like the woods it describes, the poem is lovely but entices us with dark depths—of interpretation,
in this case. It stands alone and beautiful, the account of a man stopping by woods on a snowy
evening, but gives us a come-hither look that begs us to load it with a full inventory of
possible meanings. We protest, we make apologies, we point to the dangers of reading poetry
in this way, but unlike the speaker of the poem, we cannot resist.

The last two lines are the true culprits. They make a strong claim to be the most celebrated
instance of repetition in English poetry. The first “And miles to go before I sleep” stays within
the boundaries of literalness set forth by the rest of the poem. We may suspect, as we have
up to this point, that the poem implies more than it says outright, but we can’t insist on it;
the poem has gone by so fast, and seemed so straightforward. Then comes the second “And
miles to go before I sleep,” like a soft yet penetrating gong; it can be neither ignored nor
forgotten. The sound it makes is “Ahhh.” And we must read the verses again and again and
offer trenchant remarks and explain the “Ahhh” in words far inferior to the poem. For the last
“miles to go” now seems like life; the last “sleep” now seems like death.
The basic conflict in the poem, resolved in the last stanza, is between an attraction toward the
woods and the pull of responsibility outside of the woods. What do woods represent? Something
good? Something bad? Woods are sometimes a symbol for wildness, madness, the pre-rational,
the looming irrational. But these woods do not seem particularly wild. They are someone’s
woods, someone’s in particular—the owner lives in the village. But that owner is in the village
on this, the darkest evening of the year—so would any sensible person be. That is where the
division seems to lie, between the village (or “society,” “civilization,” “duty,” “sensibility,”
“responsibility”) and the woods (that which is beyond the borders of the village and all it
represents). If the woods are not particularly wicked, they still possess the seed of the irrational;
and they are, at night, dark—with all the varied connotations of darkness.
Part of what is irrational about the woods is their attraction. They are restful, seductive,
lovely, dark, and deep—like deep sleep, like oblivion. Snow falls in downy flakes, like a
blanket to lie under and be covered by. And here is where many readers hear dark undertones
to this lyric. To rest too long while snow falls could be to lose one’s way, to lose the path, to
freeze and die. Does this poem express a death wish, considered and then discarded? Do the
woods sing a siren’s song? To be lulled to sleep could be truly dangerous. Is allowing oneself
to be lulled akin to giving up the struggle of prudence and self-preservation? Or does the
poem merely describe the temptation to sit and watch beauty while responsibilities are forgotten—
to succumb to a mood for a while?

The woods sit on the edge of civilization; one way or another, they draw the speaker away
from it (and its promises, its good sense). “Society” would condemn stopping here in the dark,

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