Stopping by Woods & the Memorizing Thing

This morning, Facebook reminded me that three years ago I had shared some information from Writer's Almanac (R.I.P.): Today is the anniversary of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," first published on this day in 1923 in the New Republic--and later collected in his volume New Hampshire, 1923.

The Robert Frost Encyclopedia, 2001 (yes, there is such a volume; yes, I own a copy), says that Frost did not write the poem quickly (as he sometimes claimed). Documentary evidence shows drafts, and those drafts show his labor.

Apparently, the horse-and-the-sleigh-in-the-snow was based on an actual incident near their farm in Derry, New Hampshire (which Joyce and I saw and toured on July 12, 2002). (See our pic below.)

The structure if the poem is intricate--and Frost's skill makes it subtle. Take a quick look:

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  

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 flake.  

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.

The rhythm is iambic tetrameter (duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh DUH in each stanza). But it's the rhyming that is so cool. Look at it. aaba is the first stanza--then bbcb--then ccdc--then dddd. In other words, the word at the end of the third line in each stanza provides the principal rhyme for the following stanza. Frost ended it the only way he could, really: by introducing no new rhyming words in the final stanza.

Anyway ... for quite a few years I had my 8th graders at Harmon School memorize this poem (I retired in January 1997), and today, responding to my Facebook post, a former student (and now a professor) commented that she still could recite the poem.

As I can. (I run through it in my head three days a week--MWF while I'm on the exercise bike at the health club).

This morning, at the coffee shop, a friend came in; He'd seen my post, and he alluded to "miles to go before I sleep."

I waited a few minutes, then walked over to his table and reeled off the whole thing for him.

I don't often do that--recite poems I've memorized. For some reason, it seems to annoy many people. So Joyce must suffer for all!

But my friend seemed grateful to hear the whole thing, and I was grateful I could still do it.

I've always believed that it's a good thing to have some great words in my brain--alongside all the clutter and detritus (the TV jingles from 1954, Mickey Mantle's batting average in 1956, the theme song from Wyatt Earp, the highest number of points I scored in a high school basketball game, the grade I got in Algebra II at Hiram High School, the name of my 2nd grade teacher in Amarillo, the ...).

And so Frost's words are there, and if you ever have the misfortune of asking me about it, get ready!