Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.
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's 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's 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.
2 comments:
I have fond memories of my father reciting this poem to me when I was a child. He learned it when he was in junior high, and it stayed with him all these years. This was the only poem my father could recite. At the time, I didn't realize how amazing it was that my father could remember a poem from junior high. When he was fourteen, he had to drop out of school to provide for his mother and sisters. As I became an adult with my own responsibilities, my tendencies to over-function, over-analyze, and overwhelm myself, I began to understand the importance of taking five minutes to read and breathe.
This poem, I heard somewhere, is about death. It would've taken me a lifetime to figure it out, had I not heard it.
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