This poem has a special place in my heart because I learned it when I was about 10 years old from the TRS-80 "User's Manual For Level 1" book. See page 209!
That's one of the first programs I ever keyed in. It would print the stanzas out slowly, pausing in between, all the while "snowing" pixels onto the screen. I fell in love with programming then, and it's been magic ever since. Here's to a few more miles...
I love that in the listing every keyword is abbreviated, even F. for FOR!
I lived through the era of type-in BASIC games, and had an 8-bit micro whose BASIC also had abbreviations, but I don't recall seeing magazine listings so vehemently abbreviated!!
To save bytes? To save typing? Or... just to seem more l33t ^_^
I dissent from the implication that this poem is non-hacking-related. It is arguably not a hack (though it is certainly a product of ingenuity and achieves a large effect with little resources, but I think other factors weigh against it) but there is no human activity unrelated to, specifically, this poem; and hacking is a human activity, perhaps the most human of all activities.
Clearly it was posted here so that we could criticize his work and point out all of the places where <<American English>> fails in comparison to C++ in conveying effective meaning.
When my first kid was born, I committed this poem and about a dozen more to memory. In the middle of sleepless nights, and zombie stroller walks, they kept me sane because I felt like I could focus on so little outside of work besides the all-consuming kid. I worried for a little bit what passersby thought when they heard me rambling to myself in the park, but that concern didn’t last long. Almost 4 years later, I’m typing this as I rock my second to sleep, thankful for the reminder to go through my list of poems - surprised how quickly they all came back - and still desperately trying to stay sane. Though it is easier this time around.
This is one of my favorite poems -- perhaps because it was my first in-depth exposure to poetry.
In high school, I was assigned a poetry explication: it was a combination of poetic analysis and public speaking (I had to deliver my work to the class), and it was a major part of my grade.
I chose this poem because it was one of the few poems I'd ever read.
I'd never spent much time with poetry, but the hours I dedicated to really thinking about (and feeling) this poem made a lasting impact. I don't remember the grade I got, but the assignment absolutely kindled my lifelong love of poetry.
I spend more time on translations of older Chinese poetry these days (I highly recommend Red Pine's translation of Wei Ying-wu's In Such Hard Times), but I'll always remember Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
The Hindi translation of (part of) this poem is famous in its own right. It was created by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the most famous Hindi poet of his generation and famous now as the father of Amitabh Bachchan, the actor. The poem and its translation also have a connection to India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. According to Nehru's biographer, this poem - and its Hindi translation - were among the last things that Nehru read before his death in 1967 [1]. The Hindi version is not faithful to the meter of the English verse, but it is in many ways even more beautiful, with every word being deep and sonorous; and it sounds more wonderful when read out because of rhyme and alliteration on nearly every line. The link below contains the translation, and a few notes on why it's so beautiful.
I've known of this poem for 30 years now (having memorized it in elementary school) - and looking at it 30 years later I spotted something I had never seen before:
The rhyming scheme. AABA, BBCB, CCDC, DDDD. Its interlocking with kind of a cheat at the end since the final line is a duplicate. Absolutely beautiful.
This is my all time favorite poem simply because it is able to evoke such strong visualizations for me. I can really see the rider so viscerally and no other non visual media is able to replicate that. I don’t really understand how but Robert Frost was on to something that no one else I’ve found was.
Seeing this in HN makes me think there are others who feel similar which I think is great. Anyone have similar media that evokes a similar feeling?
I assume every English teacher of quality must have gone through this poem with their class. Mine certainly did! This reminds me, I should write to her and thank her for introducing me to such enchantment
Robert Frost is one of those poets where if I think I understand the poem after one reading, I'm often wrong. This is a great poem, but I don't think it has a particularly hidden meaning. Am I mistaken?
I feel like he may not have even been being ironic, what with the 'channeled' or tapped-in nature of some poems. Someone here posted a video of him reading it, before that he confirms he got this one out in a very short amount of time.
I think that the mantra-like effect of the last two lines plus the mention of unfulfilled promises suggests a certain “call of the void” from the wintery scene. So I think there’s a lurking darkness to the poem behind the surface story of entrancing natural beauty on the way to some engagement. (But I’m not sure if that was Frost’s actual intent.)
Yes that’s the read I got as well. He is contemplating letting himself get taken away by lingering too long in the frigid conditions, but then snaps out of it.
The allusion to trespassing makes me thankful I live in the western US where much more of the land is public. I don't know why that's my takeaway from reading this, but there you have it.
I don't actually think there's an allusion to trespassing here. The narrator is passing through someone's woodlot far from the village, which is still accepted behavior in large portions of northern New England.
Much of Frost's poetry is about Vermont or New Hampshire, and Vermont's private woodland is very open (except in a few towns) and has always been so. This is thanks to the Vermont Constitution's provisions on hunting:
The inhabitants of this State shall have liberty in seasonable times, to hunt and fowl on the lands they hold, and on other lands not inclosed... under proper regulations, to be made and provided by the General Assembly.
If land isn't fenced off or actually posted (and posting large woodlands is deliberately difficult in Vermont), then it doesn't count as "inclosed."
And Vermont's culture still supports this. There are hundreds of acres of unposted private land near my house which are owned by old-school Vermonters, and I am absolutely welcome to hike them.
Maine has a slightly different set of rules, and posting land is easier. But once you get away from the coast and into the serious forest, it's not that different from Vermont. And as far as I know, New Hampshire also allows hunting on unposted woodland.
In Maine I believe postings need to be no more than 100ft apart but a painted purple stripe will suffice, not sure if that rule is in VT.
Maine is changing and every year more land is posted but in the inland areas people still look down on those who post. I can’t imagine the institutional and corporate owned tracts ever being posted. I hunt on some land trust land which requires some perfunctory, automated permissions. I spend a lot of time in western Maine and the North Maine Woods and they are truly my favorite places.
I understand for people like the parent who come from the west where they have BLM lands and all the attendant freedoms looking down on all that private land in the northeast and as someone who lives in Maine, that’s perfectly fine with me as I know what it’s really like here.
On the boundary? That seems somewhat reasonable. If they were much further apart than that, you could reasonably claim that you entered the property without knowing it was private.
yes on the boundaries. it varies by town but some of them require you to change the sign each year and keep it up to date with the town. so it's like an annual task for a landowner who typically has a million other tasks to do. here is an entertaining video series related to this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc-AG0_QlqbCo_rhLic0A...
That's an interesting take. Didn't think of that, but I appreciate it. Thanks for sharing. He's aware that it's not his land, and he thinks about who owns it.
Having lived bi-coastally, I agree this is an idiosyncratic distinction between east and west. Particularly northeast and west. And we have great mounds of thinkers who have raised the thought. Thoreau. Steinbeck. Kesey.
How wonderful it is to walk into woods and cliffs by compass and pack. No deeds or POSTED signs. No orange toque as deference to hunters.
Yet the coast of Maine is mostly parceled off to old money. Mill towns evaporate into poisoned ghosts. And Adirondack Park defenders chattle on about 'public-private partnerships' as if the National Park system was never conceived.
> Yet the coast of Maine is mostly parceled off to old money.
I live half a mile from the Maine coast and when I look around I don’t see any old money in my neighborhood. If you are talking about literally a house overlooking the ocean, that’s always been prized real estate.
I've got a collection of Robert Frost's works and I have my kids recite some of the poems out loud. This is one of the more popular, along with "the road not taken", "the lockless door" and "acquainted with the night".
It's a great thing to do; they get to flex their memory, work on enunciating, and experience the pleasure of poetry (best done by reading out loud). Frost's works are well-tuned to it. They speak about nature, which is easy for everyone to understand. And a lot of them have nice soft sounds and pleasant rhythms.
Also, The Road Not Taken is probably the most well-known american poem ever, so it's good to be acquainted with it.
I sung an arranged version of this poem as part of my high school's chorus group some time in 2001-2003. As far as I can remember, there wasn't any (or many if at all) changes to the Poem's text.
Apparently Eric Whitacre (a choral composer popular with high school choirs around 2001-2003) originally wrote Sleep to the lyrics of “Stopping by…” but was sued by Frost’s estate. He can’t release the original until 2038. https://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/sleep
There have been many settings of this poem to music but the best known one (at least by choral nerds) might be the unauthorized one by Eric Whitacre: https://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/sleep
The hiddenness of this post today (for people in the northern hemisphere at least) was that I posted it on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, which is the same day that Frost is speaking about in the poem - not sure how many have you recognize that yet? Hopefully it adds to the magic. Merry Christmas! :)
No, many have forgotten it, but it is strangely one of the references that arises for me most quickly because at age 12, my best friend used to quote it from Telefon.
I wouldn't read from seriously for several more years yet, and both my friend and I became English lit undergrads.
In junior high, we had to memorize and recite a poem in front of the class and this was one of the choices available to us. It's the one I chose, so it holds a special place for me.
The teacher who taught our class was probably one of the best teachers I've ever had. She was tough but fair and so you really wanted to impress her 'cause she knew what you were capable of. When you're a teenager, having an adult treat you with respect but call you out when you fell short of your own standards goes a long way.
I read this poem once, together with someone in her snowy New Hampshire cabin who I was deeply in love with, and it brought me to tears. It’s so beautiful.
Humble plug for the poetry app I created for iOS. The Poetry Corner is written in React Native, and contains over 40,000 public-domain poems, and surfaces the classics in a beautiful and distraction free design!
That's a great idea! What a marvelous one - a way to honor, but also surprising that no one seems to have thought of it before. Imagine coming across that, would be beautiful.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/software-manu...
That's one of the first programs I ever keyed in. It would print the stanzas out slowly, pausing in between, all the while "snowing" pixels onto the screen. I fell in love with programming then, and it's been magic ever since. Here's to a few more miles...
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