wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
A short walk in the woods behind our house.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
- Thread starter wee_ginga_yin
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23skidoo
Well-known member
Very nice, Robert.... I memorized this poem for a class assignment in 6th grade - made quite an impression on my 12 year old mind.
Your video reminds me another poem by my favorite poet - 'The Snowman' by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Your video reminds me another poem by my favorite poet - 'The Snowman' by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
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wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
Overall Frost used the rhyme scheme AABA-BBCB-CCDC-DDDD, which follows the
Rubaiyat stanza created by Edward Fitzgerald who translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
Perhaps the poem gains its strength from the fact that it borrows from the Sufi mystical tradition.
So here we have a man and his horse out in the woods in the evening.
It is snowing and the man who owns the woods is safe at home.
Two men, one in the warmth of his town house and the other out
in the cold snow with his horse.
The horse has been accustomed to getting saddled up and ridden from
one place to another, but here it finds itself stood stock still in the woods
and the man on its back is just looking at the snow fall on the trees in
the dark of night.
Frost then indulges in a bit of anthropomorphism (Do horses wonder are they amazed
do they have the same sensibilities as humans?)
The horse wants to move on, and shakes its head in disbelief.
This is not the usual journey of getting from one place to another.
Why this stillness? What is the man looking for? What is he waiting for?
What does the man see that the horse cannot see?
The man has been stopped by the beauty in nature and ponders the larger
journeys that lie before him, and the things he must do before that everlasting sleep.
That double last line is a puzzler unless it refers to temporal sleep and eternal sleep.
23skidoo
Well-known member
I wondered about that last line, as well. I've always seen it as an 'emphasis added' bit of gravitas. As you say, he is contemplating all the duties that lie before him in the many miles he will travel before he 'sleeps'. I've always read a poignant guilt in this line - Frost's Yankee pragmatism reining in his magical, middle-of-the-night meditation that serves no practical purpose - a working man reminding himself that he has no time to contemplate the ineffable as his horse freezes beneath him and the clock ticks.
I've always liked the 'mind of winter' image from the Stevens poem - the idea that it takes a certain frigidity to distance yourself from suffering the cold and the misery it entails. There is the same implied contemplation of the ineffable brought on by the freezing stillness but Stevens' 'Snowman' is not capable of making the leap - he is frozen out of the human condition. Most of us are bound to suffer the chill, beholding 'nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.'
I've always liked the 'mind of winter' image from the Stevens poem - the idea that it takes a certain frigidity to distance yourself from suffering the cold and the misery it entails. There is the same implied contemplation of the ineffable brought on by the freezing stillness but Stevens' 'Snowman' is not capable of making the leap - he is frozen out of the human condition. Most of us are bound to suffer the chill, beholding 'nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.'
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wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
Eric Whitacre perhaps more famous for putting together
a youtube choir of 2000 voices talks about his work in a short TED documentry
[video]http://blog.ted.com/2011/04/01/a-virtual-choir-2000-voices-strong-eric-whitacre-on-ted-com/[/video]
He has two videos called "Sleep" In one he uses words by the poet Charles Anthony Silvestri.
and he has also done it with the words of Robert Frost.
This was the original version of Eric Whitacre's song "Sleep"
but had to be later rewritten due to copyright issues.
I much prefer the Frost version. It is magical with all those long drawn out notes.
Even though they are singing in English it could be some angelic tongue.
I have to admit it was those long notes that made me put in that stuttering
unsure faltering note (Cosmic reflection/Ethereal sunrise in garageband)
from Gabriel's trumpet, signifying that the man's time had not yet come.
a youtube choir of 2000 voices talks about his work in a short TED documentry
[video]http://blog.ted.com/2011/04/01/a-virtual-choir-2000-voices-strong-eric-whitacre-on-ted-com/[/video]
He has two videos called "Sleep" In one he uses words by the poet Charles Anthony Silvestri.
and he has also done it with the words of Robert Frost.
This was the original version of Eric Whitacre's song "Sleep"
but had to be later rewritten due to copyright issues.
I much prefer the Frost version. It is magical with all those long drawn out notes.
Even though they are singing in English it could be some angelic tongue.
I have to admit it was those long notes that made me put in that stuttering
unsure faltering note (Cosmic reflection/Ethereal sunrise in garageband)
from Gabriel's trumpet, signifying that the man's time had not yet come.
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Wow! So Beautiful!!
I just loved the concept, the excursion, the playing, the recitation, the interpretation, and of course, the poem - always been a favorite of mine... Thanks!! (This brought me out of lurk mode & forced me to sign in to respond!)
Thanks again,
Sunny
I just loved the concept, the excursion, the playing, the recitation, the interpretation, and of course, the poem - always been a favorite of mine... Thanks!! (This brought me out of lurk mode & forced me to sign in to respond!)
Thanks again,
Sunny
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wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
What a lovely comment... made my day. Thanks.
