Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening catches the attention of its readers on many levels. Robert Frost’s beautiful writing in itself is indeed mystical in the way it transforms your surroundings and paints the perfect picture. The reader can feel the stillness of the air, hear the softness of the snowfall and the slight jingle of the bells on the horse’s reigns. When one digs deeper into the meaning and soft metaphors one may find this poem speaks to their soul on a whole different level. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is more than just peaceful words, it encroaches on what is arguably the true meaning of life and speaks of achieving your goals while remembering to stop and smell the roses along life’s great journey.
Left to care for his family at a young age, Robert Frost’s life was plagued with sadness. His father died when he was a young boy; his mother suffered from depression and died of cancer before he was thirty, and his sister was committed to a mental institution where she died after nine years. Frost married and had six children, only two of which outlived their father. One died at birth, another died just days after birth, a son died at age eight, and one daughter committed suicide. Though he never actually graduated from college, Frost was a teacher for over forty years, received four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry, and received dozens of honorary degrees from Ivy League schools. When he died in 1963 at the age of 88, his epitaph quoted a line from one of his poems: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world" (http://gonewengland.about.com/library/bloldchurch.htm).
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