Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Identity

[adr22367]

How do the literary devices make this poem a well written one? Also, how do they make Identity a well written poem? In Identity, are the first 2 paragraphs the extended metaphor? Thanks

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
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.

Identity
by Julio Noboa Polanco

Let them be as flowers,
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.

I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed,
clinging on cliffs, like an eagle
wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.

To have broken through the surface of stone,
to live, to feel exposed to the madness
of the vast, eternal sky.
To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,
carrying my soul, my seed,
beyond the mountains of time or into the abyss of the bizarre.

I'd rather be unseen, and if
then shunned by everyone,
than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,
growing in clusters in the fertile valley,
where they're praised, handled, and plucked
by greedy, human hands.

I'd rather smell of musty, green stench
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
If I could stand alone, strong and free,
I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed.

[blazeofglory]

This is really mysterious, and particularly the poet's use of the way a horse thinks and man is superlatively superimposing.

[ctalerico]

"Stopping By Woods..." is my favorite Frost poem with "Britches" and "Out, Out--" running close seconds!

I was quite young and had not yet been introduced formally to poetry when I first read "Stopping By Woods..." yet I still recall the immense impact it had on me. It's such a visual poem, for one thing, and I was young with my life ahead of me with "miles to walk" before I slept. For many, many years the words echoed in my brain just as--later, much later when I was first introduced to Hamlet--the words "to thine own self be true..." became woven into my being and philosophy.

Anyway, coming across it unexpectedly just now (perhaps not unlike the figure in the poem comes unexpectedly across the snowy field) and reading Frost's now-oh-so-familiar words flung me back across the great expanse of years to arrive instantly at that moment when youth experiences all new things with fresh eyes and unbridled zeal: so just now I caught a glimpse and re-experienced the sheer delight upon first reading this poem.

What marvelous time-travel this poem has just provided! Indeed, the magic of poetry never ceases to amaze.

[Beewulf]

I recently had a similar experience with "Stopping by Woods." When I was in college, one of my professors liked to mock the regularity of the poem's trochaic metre. He felt the poem was memorable but not profound. Looking at it now, I completely disagree. Reading the final stanza "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,/But I have promises to keep" with the experience of age, devastated me. It is a sublime work.

[ctalerico]

I recently had a similar experience with "Stopping by Woods." When I was in college, one of my professors liked to mock the regularity of the poem's trochaic metre. He felt the poem was memorable but not profound. Looking at it now, I completely disagree. Reading the final stanza "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,/But I have promises to keep" with the experience of age, devastated me. It is a sublime work.

Fascinating. I enjoyed reading your comments. I agree with you, the poem is definitely sublime. Your professor's criticism surprises me though. The reassuring heartbeat regularity of the consistent and predictable meter is, for me, a major underlying element that enhances its imagery and etched it into my mind making it so memorable after the passing of so many years. As you suggested in your observations, it's that very quality of memorability that marks the poem sublime and profound.

[blazeofglory]

This is one of the poems that inspires me and indeed ignites in me a sense of accountability in the ordinary course of living , of course appeals to me to be more duty-bound, and wary of the destination I have set for. This is matchlessly beautiful, and appealingly moving, a mystic stuff and when I read them in the quietness and stillness of nature I gravitate to eternity.