Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963 / San Francisco)

this is my favourite poem that i learnt during my school days. i have been searching for it from many days n now i got it. thanks. I LUV IT........

The poor man did'nt
reach his destination
of that much
I am sure,
and so did the poet.

This is my favourite Robert Frost poem! I memorized it the first time I heard it...it's been with me for twenty years or more. The lyrical flow is beautiful as is the imagery.

One has to read the poem out loud to experience the magic of its cadences.(c.f. W. H. Auden's definition of poetry as memorable speech.)
Frost says he repeated the last line because he couldn't think of any other.Clearly he also recognised that there was no need for any other.
The statement in the last verse is that beauty is compelling and he would love to linger, but he has work to do.
'Sleep' may refer to nightime sleep, or the more lasting sleep of death.

What a marvellous piece of poetic justice.

After all there
was a stranger in front of
every house and
woods
and frozen lakes

A great poet, Like robert frost, will always keep you guessing. It has excellent imagry. Also great poems never die as long as theres someone to read them.

Great poem, check out my poems too

Well, I guess everyone can interpret a poem the way they want. Great poets are those that get across multiple ideas with a single poem. BUT, it is known that Frost's poetry isn't as light and cheerful as many people think. And this poem is quite dark if you are getting the message he was expressing.

I'm surprised how optimistic the commentary on this poem is, and with how the majority of people view his work. Frost has been called one of the darkest poets of our time, and the most accurate interpretations of his poems are often left out of grade school curriculums for the same reason kids spend weeks learning about Martin Luther King Jr. but Malcolm X is mentioned only in passing.

Robert Frost had a horrible life. His father died of tuberculosis when he was 11, leaving the family poor and destitute, and his mother later died of cancer. His younger sister was committed to a mental hospital and died there nine years later, and he had to send his daughter to an asylum as well. Out of his six children, only two outlived him (a son commited suicide, a son and daughter from disease and another daughter from SIDS) , and his wife died of cancer and heart failure.

This is not an uplifting poem about can-do spunk and optimism. The narrator and rider of this poem is not smilng or daydreaming. It is an epiphany about stoic duty. The woods symbolize death, and indirectly suicide. It would be very easy for the rider to simply give in and embrace death, which seems far more welcome than the responsibilities he is bound to. But instead, he forges on grimly, all because of duty.

This poem is about Duty. With a capital D.