A Place of Repose

Woods at the creek on Junk Road

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.

            -Robert Frost (1874-1963)

What a wonderful place Frost has created for us!  He pulls us into the poem by using the pronoun “I” two times in the first line.  When I pull myself away from Frost’s lovely place, I return to the warmth of a fireplace inside a yellow farmhouse.  

Merry Mount 2/2/19

It is here that I can contemplate the promises I have to keep, and wonder about how many more miles I have before I can sleep.

Sonnet

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,

Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom‑pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes.
Or wait the “Amen” ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,

And seal the hushèd casket of my Soul.

-John Keats (1795–1821)

CPW