To take a step back and admire the woods, to isolate by not going in the village: these are the speaker’s actions in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, but their sense of duty will end the peaceful state in which they are. Through the setting and the personification of the horse, the speaker in Frost’s poem finds himself in a peaceful state which then gets interrupted, thus emphasizing how difficult it can be to get away from duties and personal matters.

The speaker is in a peaceful state, by getting isolated in order to admire the woods. The four quatrains and the regular iambic tetrameter implies a form of harmony which can be interpreted as peace. Moreover, the frequent use of long lasting sounds as in “Whose” (1), “woods” (1), “house” (2), “snow” (4), “sweep” (11) and “easy” (12) makes the reading, and therefore the speed of the poem, slower, thus emphasizing a feeling of calmness and peace. Furthermore, the speaker makes comments on the forest such as “The woods are lovely, dark and deep” (13). They not only say that the woods are beautiful to look at, but by saying “deep” (13), they also imply that they would gladly stay here and observe, discover or even explore the forest. Therefore, the setting is important: it happens at night during “The darkest evening of the year” (8) which implicates it is also in winter. Thus giving a slow rhythm to the poem because winter is a season where nature slows down and hibernate. Moreover, the speaker is isolated because they did not go in the village “He will not see me stopping here” (3) thus emphasizing the feeling of peace. In addition, the lack of “farmhouse near” (6) emphasizes the isolation in which the speaker is. The speaker ends up being alone in a really quiet place where “The only other sounds the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flakes” (11-12), thus not only asserting that the wood are calm and peaceful, but also meaning that the speaker does not say a word. They are lost in their contemplation, thus making them not paying attention to their horse. The peaceful state is palpable throughout the poem through the setting and the rhythm.

The state of peacefulness gets at first interrupted, then completely prevented in the end. The interruption starts in the second stanza where the punctuation suddenly disappears: it is a series of enjambments, thus speeding the rhythm and breaking the general regularity of the poem. Moreover, in this stanza, the speaker’s horse is personified and becomes a character who calls the speaker to order. Therefore, the horse doesn’t think it is normal to stop in the woods. The fact that the horse “must think it queer” (5) shows that it’s uncommon to stop here when the speaker has duties to accomplish. Moreover, in the third stanza, the “harness bells” (9) could be interpreted as an alarm telling the speaker to move on and stop contemplating the woods. Consequently, the rhyming pattern AABA is broken in the last stanza and becomes a DDDD, thus definitely breaking the regularity and the general peacefulness of the poem. Furthermore, the sentence “The woods are lovely, dark and deep

/ But I have promises to keep” (13-14) shows the regrets in the speaker’s mind, mostly emphasized with the “but” (14), like it’s a shame that they have to leave the woods that they would gladly have explored or observed. The repetition in the last to lines “And miles to go before I sleep” (15-16) emphasizes how unwillingly the speaker quits the woods. The speaker has to move on and abandon the woods to accomplish his duties.

The formal and figurative elements in Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening in fact oppose the peaceful state in which the speaker is and wishes to stay with the responsibilities that prevent this peaceful state. The two are incompatible and the duties seem to be stronger than the peace,

is no duty to accomplish.