Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
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.
(Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: Robert Frost)
(i) Who is ‘I’ referred to in the extract? Which season of the year is it? What evidence is there in the poem to support your answer?
(ii) Who has made him aware of his mistake? How does it make the speaker aware of his mistake? What does it seem to say?
(iii) What are the three sounds heard?
(iv) What has been said earlier by the poet about the owner of the woods?
(v) What does lovely, dark and deep suggest? What is the underlying significance in the repetition of the last two lines of the extract? Mention the moral tag that the poet attaches to the poem.
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(i)
- Poet / rider / traveler
- Winter
- Winter solstice / 22 Dec / shortest and darkest evening of the year / snow falling.
(ii)
- His horse
- The horse gives his harness bells a shake.
- To ask if there is some mistake to stop without a farmhouse near.
(iii)
- the sound of easy wind
- downy flake / snow fall
- harness bells
(iv)
- whose woods these are I think I know
- His house is in the village
- He will not see me stopping here
(v)
- Attractions / temptations / sensuous enjoyment.
- duty / responsibilities to be done before normal sleep and duty / responsibilities to be completed before the final sleep i.e. death.
- moral tag