woods fill up with snow

“Winter” by Ivan Shishkin
“Winter” by Ivan Shishkin

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.

~ Robert Frost
(Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

12 thoughts on “woods fill up with snow”

    1. Hi Laurie – this problem is so frustrating! Nate just emailed me and is wondering if perhaps the notifications are being filtered into your junk mail folder. If that is the case perhaps there is a way you can tag them as “not spam” or however your email host handles it. Please let me know if that turns out to be the problem! My dashboard indicates that you are still subscribed…

  1. Hi,
    That is a beautiful photo of the snow in the woods, and a lovely poem.

    I rely on my RSS feed for blogs, and there isn’t any problem in that department with your blog, your blog posts are showing up fine in my feeds.

    1. Thank you, Mags! It’s nice to know that some of you are making use of the RSS feed, and that it works well, even though I find it confusing!

  2. I’m only getting a few notifications, but never worry as I come by from time to time anyway to check. 🙂

    Lovely verse and image – and I’m here to wish you and your family a very happy (and healthy) 2012.

    Hugs.

    1. Thank you very much, Val! Wishing you a Happy & Healthy New Year, too, a year full of creativity and inspiration! *hugs*

      Perhaps you’ll be getting the notifications more regularly now that Nate has changed the address they get sent from. It’s nice to know you’ll come by and check on me either way! 🙂

  3. This poem brings back memories of my childhood. When I was in school in the 60s and 70s we didn’t generally memorize poems–but there was one exception. We memorized Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. I didn’t think that I’d ever get it memorized at the time–but I can still say most of it by heart.

    1. It’s true that memorizing poems has become a thing of the past – my father had *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner* memorized at one time and can still recall big parts of it. Amazes me!

      *Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening* is a wonderful poem to have stored in your memory. I bet you’re glad now that you made the effort!

    1. Thanks, Tracy! I think so, too, but we’ve had no snow yet this January! (Last January we had enough snow to last us a few years!)

  4. We rarely get much snow as far south as Austin, but some sycamore trunks I came across here in December served as surrogates for snow in reminding me of the Frost poem:

    http://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/whose-woods-these-are-i-just-dont-know/

    When I was studying French in college our teacher had us memorize passages, often from poems, as a way to practice improving our French accent. That was 47 years ago, and occasionally lines from some of those poems still come to mind.

    1. Those sycamores are beautiful! The Frost poem is one my father still recites, even though he suffers from dementia. That and the *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.* It’s amazing sometimes, which memories stick with us…

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