full=This is the full lesson text from www.skoool.ie for the Robert Frost poem, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'.
PARAPHRASE<br>The speaker's attention wanders as he makes his way home on horseback through the snowy landscape on December 21st.  He asks himself who owns the woods and then answers his own question - their owner lives in the village. The evening is cold but the musing continues until even his horse becomes impatient. Though the man knows he should keep going - it is dark, cold and late - he becomes enchanted. Then as the silence deepens (even a snow flake can be heard) the harness bells ring out and the poet is caught between enjoying the beauty of the moment and the urgency of keeping promises, promises which, perhaps, he made earlier. 
THEME<br>At the heart of this poem lies one of life's great quandaries (dilemmas) and it is the theme of the poem: whether to follow the call of the imagination or to live life as a cautious, prudent, responsible human being. Everybody, at some time, experiences this kind of dilemma, but for a poet or an artist it is acute. Like so many of Robert Frost's poems, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' recounts a simple incident that seems of great significance for the poet. While travelling home on the darkest evening of the year (mid-winter) he stops to admire a neighbour's woods as they fill up with snow. The poet is hypnotised by the sight and becomes lost in reverie (reflection). <br><br>We do not know how long he has been standing watching the woods but his horse become restless and shakes its bells. The poet awakens from his daydream and becomes aware of how peculiar it would seem to others if they saw him looking at the woods in this way. The poet wants to continue gazing at the woods but he realises that he has responsibilities and "promises" to keep and that he must continue on his long journey away from the woods towards home and those who wait there for him.
IMAGERY<br>The title of the poem, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' conjures up a striking and mysterious image of dark woods silhouetted against the white ground and a snow filled sky. The man stops to look at the woods and is captivated. His observation of the scene takes on a dream-like quality which is enhanced by the setting of the poem on, "The darkest evening of the year".<br><br>In the second and third stanzas the man is disturbed from his thoughts because his horse has grown restless. The poet, here, gives the horse almost human qualities when he says: <br><br>My little horse must think it queer<br>To stop without a farmhouse near <br><br>The horse has become impatient and wants to continue the journey. Again, we see how the poet attributes human thoughts to the horse when he writes: <br><br>He gives his harness bells and shake<br>To ask if there is some mistake<br><br>Horses obviously don't think in this way so the thoughts the poet attributes to the horse are really his own thoughts, his own restlessness. The horse represents the part of the poet that thinks that it is strange to stop and look at woods when it is late and cold and he has "miles to go" before he sleeps. <br><br>In the final stanza, the poet acknowledges the opposing feelings in himself: the desire to be alone and admire the woods, and the desire to honour his responsibilities and continue his long journey home: <br><br>And miles to go before I sleep, <br>And miles to go before I sleep
ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE<br>Mood <br>'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' is a poem about a simple event. We have all stopped to look at nature and sometimes this can give rise to powerful and mysterious feelings. The poet here is on his way home. It is late, dark and snowing. He should just keep going but he becomes hypnotised by the woods and stops to look at them "fill up with snow". <br><br>While the poet's description of the event is simple, the feeling behind the words creates a sense of great mystery. He becomes aware of how he is alone as no one else will be travelling at that late hour. As result, he experiences a tremendous feeling of solitude and seems to see the woods with a clarity he has not experienced before It is as though he has encountered the woods for the first time: <br><br>The woods are lovely, dark and deep, <br><br>Again, the dream quality of this encounter is reinforced by the poet's statement at the end of the poem that he has many miles to travel before he "sleeps". This is, of course, true but the idea of sleep is given special emphasis. The encounter with the woods has become a parable or a symbol for the journey of life. In this sense, the long journey home is a metaphor for the peace that the poet hopes to experience in death. But before he can realise this peace, he has many responsibilities and tasks that he must first complete. <br><br>Rhyme<br>The poet uses a number of poetic devices to convey the mysterious, dream-like nature of his experience as he watches the woods. To begin with, we notice that the poem has a very regular rhythm and uses a strong interlaced rhyme pattern: aaba / bbcb / ccdc / dddd. By repeating certain key sounds (rhymes) the poet attempts to hypnotise us in the way the woods have hypnotised him. <br><br>In the last stanza the poet takes this repetition further when he end rhymes all four lines (this is extremely unusual) as well as repeating the final line in its entirety. By repeating the last line in this way the poet gives emphasis to the great length of the journey he has to make as well as reinforcing the fact that the journey has not yet been started. <br><br>Alliteration<br>The poet also uses alliteration to add to the hypnotic mood he has created in the poem using rhythm and rhyme. We see in the first stanza the repetition of certain sounds such as "w" and "s" (whose / woods; see / stopping; watch / woods) which help to create a verbal harmony alongside the rhymes. The repetition of the word "woods" also helps to keep the image of the woods central in the first stanza. <br><br>If you look at rest of the poem you will notice the alliteration of the "s" sound in the third stanza as well as the "d" sound in the final stanza, which again help to establish the atmospheric quality of the poem. <br><br>Sibilance<br>While the poet uses rhyme and alliteration to create the dream-like music in the poem, he also uses a more unusual effect known as sibilance. Sibilance occurs when we have the repetition of the sharp "s" sound found, for example, in the word "hiss". Unlike alliteration, sibilance may occur in any part of a word not just at the beginning, as is the case with alliteration. If you look closely at the poem you will see that sibilance occurs in every stanza with great frequency. This sound enhances and unifies the sound and mood of the poem with the "s" sound forming a kind of background music to the more obvious and direct music of the rhymes and alliteration. 
POINTS TO PONDER:<br>'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' is a poem about a mysterious encounter with the natural world. Some people view this poem as a beautiful lyric which captures perfectly a "picture postcard moment" while others view it as a dark meditation on the difficulties of living a solitary and creative life. Which view of the poem do you think is more accurate? What are your reasons? <br><br>This poem is about a particular incident - but do you think it may also have a symbolic quality? Remember an image is symbolic when it refers to something concrete (the poet stopping by the woods) but also suggests some other meaning. When the poet tells us he has "miles to go before I sleep" we know that he has a long journey home, but could this journey be a symbol for the long journey of life? Discuss.
BACKGROUND:<br>Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874. He attended Harvard College but left before receiving a degree and moved his family to a small poultry farm in New England. In 1912 Frost moved to England where he achieved his first literary success publishing A Boys Will in 1913. Frost then returned to New England  where is poetry had become popular and he continued to write for the rest of his life while living on farms in Vermont and New Hampshire. In 1961, at the inauguration of a President John F. Kennedy, Frost became the first poet to read a poem at a Presidential inauguration. He died in 1963.