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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 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.


For me, the repetition calls into question the snapping out of it, as though he might yet succumb, hypnotized.


This poem has always made me think of the contemplation of death or suicide, but “call of the void” is a much better way of putting it.


It's the standard term in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appel_du_vide


Frost said he loved to read the critics' reviews of his poems, so he could learn the meaning behind what he had written.


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.




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