Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923) | Hacker News Reader

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)

poets.org

297 pointskeepamovin91 comments

This poem has a special place in my heart because I learned it when I was about 10 years old from the TRS-80 "User's Manual For Level 1" book. See page 209!

https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/software-manu...

That's one of the first programs I ever keyed in. It would print the stanzas out slowly, pausing in between, all the while "snowing" pixels onto the screen. I fell in love with programming then, and it's been magic ever since. Here's to a few more miles...

Lacking a TRS 80, YT has it as well: https://youtu.be/j-Zcog5o_p0?si=p-zMq2mnYwcONqmA

Thanks! That was very nostalgic to see it running again after all this time.

I love that in the listing every keyword is abbreviated, even F. for FOR!

I lived through the era of type-in BASIC games, and had an 8-bit micro whose BASIC also had abbreviations, but I don't recall seeing magazine listings so vehemently abbreviated!!

To save bytes? To save typing? Or... just to seem more l33t ^_^

Thank you to those who occasionally post non-hacking related material here, and everyone else who votes it up. Keeps the place interesting ;)

I dissent from the implication that this poem is non-hacking-related. It is arguably not a hack (though it is certainly a product of ingenuity and achieves a large effect with little resources, but I think other factors weigh against it) but there is no human activity unrelated to, specifically, this poem; and hacking is a human activity, perhaps the most human of all activities.

Who here has never been up late hacking on something and thought "but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep"?

Clearly it was posted here so that we could criticize his work and point out all of the places where <<American English>> fails in comparison to C++ in conveying effective meaning.

Highly recommend John Ciardi's essay on this poem, "Robert Frost: The Way to the Poem" (1958). https://issues.aperture.org/article/1958/3/3/robert-frost-th...

Wow, great article. It really helped me understand the poem better. I'm not very good at analyzing these things.

This was incredible. Thank you for sharing this.

Reading that made me want to revisit Pale Fire

Indeed. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/by the false azure in the windowpane...

When my first kid was born, I committed this poem and about a dozen more to memory. In the middle of sleepless nights, and zombie stroller walks, they kept me sane because I felt like I could focus on so little outside of work besides the all-consuming kid. I worried for a little bit what passersby thought when they heard me rambling to myself in the park, but that concern didn’t last long. Almost 4 years later, I’m typing this as I rock my second to sleep, thankful for the reminder to go through my list of poems - surprised how quickly they all came back - and still desperately trying to stay sane. Though it is easier this time around.

That’s a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing! :)

> this poem and about a dozen more to memory

I hope one of them was Acquainted with the Night. :-)

To anyone new to poetry, you’ll gain much more from the poem by reading it aloud rather than silently.

Other tips: https://www.poetryoutloud.org/tips-on-reciting

One of my extremely strange hobbies is writing variations of the last verse of this poem.

The posts are lovely, dense and deep,

but I have promises to keep,

and lines (of code) to write before I sleep,

and lines (of code) to write before I sleep.

The snacks are lovely; tasty-sweet,

But I have promises to keep,

And hours to fast before I eat,

and hours to fast before I eat.

The chasm is lovely, dark and deep.

But you have promises to keep,

And years to live before you sleep!

And years to live before you sleep.

Hahaha! :) this is hilarious, and good. Well done!

This is one of my favorite poems -- perhaps because it was my first in-depth exposure to poetry.

In high school, I was assigned a poetry explication: it was a combination of poetic analysis and public speaking (I had to deliver my work to the class), and it was a major part of my grade.

I chose this poem because it was one of the few poems I'd ever read.

I'd never spent much time with poetry, but the hours I dedicated to really thinking about (and feeling) this poem made a lasting impact. I don't remember the grade I got, but the assignment absolutely kindled my lifelong love of poetry.

I spend more time on translations of older Chinese poetry these days (I highly recommend Red Pine's translation of Wei Ying-wu's In Such Hard Times), but I'll always remember Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

This poem is from the book New Hampshire.

Another famous poem from that book is this one:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great And would suffice.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice

The title poem of the book, New Hampshire, is at least ten pages long, but ends ironically that Frost is living in Vermont.

Some say the world should take cyanocobalamin,

Some say methylcobalamin.

From what I’ve tasted of each vitamin

I hold with those who favor cyanocobalamin.

But if my supplement could have a twin,

I think I know enough of niacin

To say that for nutrition methylcobalamin

Is also great

And would fit in.

The Hindi translation of (part of) this poem is famous in its own right. It was created by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the most famous Hindi poet of his generation and famous now as the father of Amitabh Bachchan, the actor. The poem and its translation also have a connection to India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. According to Nehru's biographer, this poem - and its Hindi translation - were among the last things that Nehru read before his death in 1967 [1]. The Hindi version is not faithful to the meter of the English verse, but it is in many ways even more beautiful, with every word being deep and sonorous; and it sounds more wonderful when read out because of rhyme and alliteration on nearly every line. The link below contains the translation, and a few notes on why it's so beautiful.

[1] https://x.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/1672631096956317698

This is my all time favorite poem simply because it is able to evoke such strong visualizations for me. I can really see the rider so viscerally and no other non visual media is able to replicate that. I don’t really understand how but Robert Frost was on to something that no one else I’ve found was.

Seeing this in HN makes me think there are others who feel similar which I think is great. Anyone have similar media that evokes a similar feeling?

My friend grew up in Derry a few hundred yards away from the west-running brook.

Genius vs. Wikipedia: Who explains it better?

https://genius.com/816206

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_E...

I assume every English teacher of quality must have gone through this poem with their class. Mine certainly did! This reminds me, I should write to her and thank her for introducing me to such enchantment

Every English speaking school in India has this poem for class 9 or 10th. So every English speaking indian of 14-50 range knows this poem

Right! Interesting that many good answers on Quora regarding this poem are from English speaking Indians - as least going by the posters' names.

I've known of this poem for 30 years now (having memorized it in elementary school) - and looking at it 30 years later I spotted something I had never seen before:

The rhyming scheme. AABA, BBCB, CCDC, DDDD. Its interlocking with kind of a cheat at the end since the final line is a duplicate. Absolutely beautiful.

The first three stanzas each chain into the following. But the final stanza chains into itself, completing the knot.

No poem had ever made me feel the crunch of snow under my boots or see the flakes floating down like this poem. It's visceral.

Robert Frost is one of those poets where if I think I understand the poem after one reading, I'm often wrong. This is a great poem, but I don't think it has a particularly hidden meaning. Am I mistaken?

I think that the mantra-like effect of the last two lines plus the mention of unfulfilled promises suggests a certain “call of the void” from the wintery scene. So I think there’s a lurking darkness to the poem behind the surface story of entrancing natural beauty on the way to some engagement. (But I’m not sure if that was Frost’s actual intent.)

Yes that’s the read I got as well. He is contemplating letting himself get taken away by lingering too long in the frigid conditions, but then snaps out of it.

For me, the repetition calls into question the snapping out of it, as though he might yet succumb, hypnotized.

This poem has always made me think of the contemplation of death or suicide, but “call of the void” is a much better way of putting it.

It's the standard term in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appel_du_vide

Frost said he loved to read the critics' reviews of his poems, so he could learn the meaning behind what he had written.

I feel like he may not have even been being ironic, what with the 'channeled' or tapped-in nature of some poems. Someone here posted a video of him reading it, before that he confirms he got this one out in a very short amount of time.

Last time I read this was in high school, it hits different at 40, HN is probably the only social media where I can be pleasantly surprised

The allusion to trespassing makes me thankful I live in the western US where much more of the land is public. I don't know why that's my takeaway from reading this, but there you have it.

I don't actually think there's an allusion to trespassing here. The narrator is passing through someone's woodlot far from the village, which is still accepted behavior in large portions of northern New England.

Much of Frost's poetry is about Vermont or New Hampshire, and Vermont's private woodland is very open (except in a few towns) and has always been so. This is thanks to the Vermont Constitution's provisions on hunting:

The inhabitants of this State shall have liberty in seasonable times, to hunt and fowl on the lands they hold, and on other lands not inclosed... under proper regulations, to be made and provided by the General Assembly.

If land isn't fenced off or actually posted (and posting large woodlands is deliberately difficult in Vermont), then it doesn't count as "inclosed."

And Vermont's culture still supports this. There are hundreds of acres of unposted private land near my house which are owned by old-school Vermonters, and I am absolutely welcome to hike them.

Maine has a slightly different set of rules, and posting land is easier. But once you get away from the coast and into the serious forest, it's not that different from Vermont. And as far as I know, New Hampshire also allows hunting on unposted woodland.

In Maine I believe postings need to be no more than 100ft apart but a painted purple stripe will suffice, not sure if that rule is in VT.

Maine is changing and every year more land is posted but in the inland areas people still look down on those who post. I can’t imagine the institutional and corporate owned tracts ever being posted. I hunt on some land trust land which requires some perfunctory, automated permissions. I spend a lot of time in western Maine and the North Maine Woods and they are truly my favorite places.

I understand for people like the parent who come from the west where they have BLM lands and all the attendant freedoms looking down on all that private land in the northeast and as someone who lives in Maine, that’s perfectly fine with me as I know what it’s really like here.

> posting large woodlands is deliberately difficult in Vermont

Can you elaborate on this? I’m curious

some towns require you to post a sign like every 20 feet which can be very labor intensive

On the boundary? That seems somewhat reasonable. If they were much further apart than that, you could reasonably claim that you entered the property without knowing it was private.

yes on the boundaries. it varies by town but some of them require you to change the sign each year and keep it up to date with the town. so it's like an annual task for a landowner who typically has a million other tasks to do. here is an entertaining video series related to this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc-AG0_QlqbCo_rhLic0A...

Hmm I was initially on the side of “everyone should have free passage through forest”, but “anyone can shoot your animals unless you re-post hundreds of signs per year” doesn’t seem like the right balance to arrive at either.

The exact current rules are here: https://vtfishandwildlife.com/learn-more/landowner-resources...

Basically, you have two options: A 500 foot "safety zone" around your house, which is easy (though not automatic like Maine), or a full posting of a larger area. Full posting requires:

1. Post every 400 feet.

2. Update the date on the signs every year.

3. Register with the town office for $5.

For people who own a lot of woods (in the hundreds of acres), this is deliberately obnoxious.

That's an interesting take. Didn't think of that, but I appreciate it. Thanks for sharing. He's aware that it's not his land, and he thinks about who owns it.

Having lived bi-coastally, I agree this is an idiosyncratic distinction between east and west. Particularly northeast and west. And we have great mounds of thinkers who have raised the thought. Thoreau. Steinbeck. Kesey.

How wonderful it is to walk into woods and cliffs by compass and pack. No deeds or POSTED signs. No orange toque as deference to hunters.

Yet the coast of Maine is mostly parceled off to old money. Mill towns evaporate into poisoned ghosts. And Adirondack Park defenders chattle on about 'public-private partnerships' as if the National Park system was never conceived.

> Yet the coast of Maine is mostly parceled off to old money.

I live half a mile from the Maine coast and when I look around I don’t see any old money in my neighborhood. If you are talking about literally a house overlooking the ocean, that’s always been prized real estate.

I do mean the coast, and it does sadden me how little of it is publicly accessible, compared to the Pacific coast.

Where did you pick up “toque”? I always thought that was a distinctly Canadian usage.

Many don't know that part of Canada secretly exists in northern NY and VT.

The hiddenness of this post today (for people in the northern hemisphere at least) was that I posted it on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, which is the same day that Frost is speaking about in the poem - not sure how many have you recognize that yet? Hopefully it adds to the magic. Merry Christmas! :)

> The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

> But I have promises to keep,

> And miles to go before I sleep

I’ve been saving up to sponsor a bench on my favorite trail and this is what I’m thinking of putting on the plaque.

That's a great idea! What a marvelous one - a way to honor, but also surprising that no one seems to have thought of it before. Imagine coming across that, would be beautiful.

I've got a collection of Robert Frost's works and I have my kids recite some of the poems out loud. This is one of the more popular, along with "the road not taken", "the lockless door" and "acquainted with the night".

It's a great thing to do; they get to flex their memory, work on enunciating, and experience the pleasure of poetry (best done by reading out loud). Frost's works are well-tuned to it. They speak about nature, which is easy for everyone to understand. And a lot of them have nice soft sounds and pleasant rhythms.

Also, The Road Not Taken is probably the most well-known american poem ever, so it's good to be acquainted with it.

I sung an arranged version of this poem as part of my high school's chorus group some time in 2001-2003. As far as I can remember, there wasn't any (or many if at all) changes to the Poem's text.

Apparently Eric Whitacre (a choral composer popular with high school choirs around 2001-2003) originally wrote Sleep to the lyrics of “Stopping by…” but was sued by Frost’s estate. He can’t release the original until 2038. https://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/sleep

There have been many settings of this poem to music but the best known one (at least by choral nerds) might be the unauthorized one by Eric Whitacre: https://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/sleep

A recording with the original lyrics exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDH5R_BgheI

YouTube also has a recording of Robert Frost himself reciting the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rebVUgCgSAU

For those looking for more poets that have a similar feel to Robert Frost, I can recommend Gary Snyder and Sydney Lea

No one mentioning the movie "Telefon" (1977) where this poem is used to wake up the sleepers :)

This is where I learned of the German translation (watching the movie in German):

  Des Waldes Dunkel zieht mich an,
  doch muss zu meinem Wort ich stehen,
  und Meilen gehen,
  bevor ich schlafen kann.

No, many have forgotten it, but it is strangely one of the references that arises for me most quickly because at age 12, my best friend used to quote it from Telefon.

I wouldn't read from seriously for several more years yet, and both my friend and I became English lit undergrads.

In junior high, we had to memorize and recite a poem in front of the class and this was one of the choices available to us. It's the one I chose, so it holds a special place for me.

The teacher who taught our class was probably one of the best teachers I've ever had. She was tough but fair and so you really wanted to impress her 'cause she knew what you were capable of. When you're a teenager, having an adult treat you with respect but call you out when you fell short of your own standards goes a long way.

I read this poem once, together with someone in her snowy New Hampshire cabin who I was deeply in love with, and it brought me to tears. It’s so beautiful.

Humble plug for the poetry app I created for iOS. The Poetry Corner is written in React Native, and contains over 40,000 public-domain poems, and surfaces the classics in a beautiful and distraction free design!

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/the-poetry-corner/id1602552624

This is just what I needed as I stare out the snowy window scene.

A request: would be nice if it did not constrain to the dimensions of a phone when on an iPad.

Thanks!

Robert Frost reads "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1952) - about 25 seconds in:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rebVUgCgSAU

Plus some opinions by him shortly following his reading of the poem:

"... but what I'm interested in is not political freedom: I'm interested in the liberties I take." and his explanation of this.

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1922) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_E...

Here is a HN friendly poem that we should all know written by Edna St. Vincent Millay at the start of WW2, so also a somewhat cold feel.

If you are a data scientist or working in AI, this poem may speak to you like no other.

Sonnet from “Huntsman, What Quarry?”

Sonnet

Upon this age, that never speaks its mind,

This furtive age, this age endowed with power

To wake the moon with footsteps, fit an oar

Into the rowlocks of the wind, and find

What swims before his prow, what swirls behind—

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,

Rains from the sky a meteoric shower

Of facts . . . they lie unquestioned, uncombined.

Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill

Is daily spun; but there exists no loom

To weave it into fabric; undefiled

Proceeds pure Science, and has her say; but still

Upon this world from the collective womb

Is spewed all day the red triumphant child.

The end of this poem always sticks in my head

Another good one is The Tyger by Blake

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger

This poem was set to music by Randall Thompson as part of Frostiana, a collection of Frost poems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3bUzZmoIRA

I use the last few lines, whenever I'm nearing the end of a coding binge, but don't have the application up to snuff, yet.

my middle school English teacher used to say the last four lines of this poem often, but I never understood why... or maybe I do now

_The Ode Less Travelled_ by Stephen Fry could make a great Christmas present.

Robert frost makes me proud to be from New England. What a beautiful poem

Hmm. Can anyone explain why this poem is in the public domain? Lifetime of the author plus 70 years hasn't expired yet.

(I'm not trying to hijack the thread into a bunch of "copyright lasts way too long" rants. I'm just curious, if anyone knows.)

Likely his most famous words. Beauty in it's simplicity.

Def one of the top, but I have to think _The Road Not Taken_ is more famous.

Wonderful, thank you.

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again; but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

well, if we are on a wb yeats kick:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Mm, classic! Still in a world that sometimes might seem more like that it's nice to have Frost by your side.

William Butler Yeats...

Poet name checks out. ;)

It is quite remarkable how his name is absolutely a perfect match for his most well known poem.

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