Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening 
“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer 5
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. 10
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, 15
And miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost I. By looking at the poem, the speaker is a traveler/ordinary person that stops to observe the beautiful scene of snow falling in the woods. The audience addressed is not clearly expressed, but it could just be humans in general. Frost utilizes the first stanza to establish most of the poem’s framework, revealing the time of year/season: “ The darkest evening of the year”, where this traveler has stopped: “Between the woods and frozen lake”, and what is happening:
“To watch his woods fill up with snow”. II. Notice that the poem is constructed with four very similar stanzas. Frost cleverly composed the poem using the
Rubaiyat Stanza, Rubaiyat meaning a stanza composed of four lines. This kind of form has a rhyme scheme of AABA and each line is accentualsyllabic (usually tetrameters and pentameters). The AABA rhyme scheme is interesting because the third line of each stanza doesn’t rhyme with the other lines in that same stanza but sets up the rhymes for the next stanza’s first, second, and fourth lines. For example, “here” on line 3 doesn’t rhyme with “know”,
“though”, “snow”, but rhymes with the second stanza’s “queer”, “near”, and “year”. The only exception in this pattern is in the final stanza in which all lines rhyme together and no new rhyme is introduced..
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer 5
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. 10
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, 15
And miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost I. By looking at the poem, the speaker is a traveler/ordinary person that stops to observe the beautiful scene of snow falling in the woods. The audience addressed is not clearly expressed, but it could just be humans in general. Frost utilizes the first stanza to establish most of the poem’s framework, revealing the time of year/season: “ The darkest evening of the year”, where this traveler has stopped: “Between the woods and frozen lake”, and what is happening:
“To watch his woods fill up with snow”. II. Notice that the poem is constructed with four very similar stanzas. Frost cleverly composed the poem using the
Rubaiyat Stanza, Rubaiyat meaning a stanza composed of four lines. This kind of form has a rhyme scheme of AABA and each line is accentualsyllabic (usually tetrameters and pentameters). The AABA rhyme scheme is interesting because the third line of each stanza doesn’t rhyme with the other lines in that same stanza but sets up the rhymes for the next stanza’s first, second, and fourth lines. For example, “here” on line 3 doesn’t rhyme with “know”,
“though”, “snow”, but rhymes with the second stanza’s “queer”, “near”, and “year”. The only exception in this pattern is in the final stanza in which all lines rhyme together and no new rhyme is introduced..
Cited: Johnson, Greg, and Thomas Arp. Perrines 's Sound & Sense. 13th. 167. Print. Cummings, Michael. "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." Cummings Study Guides. N.p., April 2012. Web. 14 Apr. 2012. Davis, Marion. "Poetic Structure in Robert Frost 's "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"."Student Pulse. Marion A. Davis, 2009. Web. 14 Apr. 2012.