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
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.
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 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.
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...
Hmm I was initially on the side of “everyone should have free passage through forest”, but “anyone can shoot your animals unless you re-post hundreds of signs per year” doesn’t seem like the right balance to arrive at either.
Basically, you have two options: A 500 foot "safety zone" around your house, which is easy (though not automatic like Maine), or a full posting of a larger area. Full posting requires:
1. Post every 400 feet.
2. Update the date on the signs every year.
3. Register with the town office for $5.
For people who own a lot of woods (in the hundreds of acres), this is deliberately obnoxious.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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?
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 ^_^
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.
94 comments
[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 172 ms ] threadOther tips: https://www.poetryoutloud.org/tips-on-reciting
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.
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.
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.
Can you elaborate on this? I’m curious
Basically, you have two options: A 500 foot "safety zone" around your house, which is easy (though not automatic like Maine), or a full posting of a larger area. Full posting requires:
1. Post every 400 feet.
2. Update the date on the signs every year.
3. Register with the town office for $5.
For people who own a lot of woods (in the hundreds of acres), this is deliberately obnoxious.
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.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/the-poetry-corner/id1602552624
A request: would be nice if it did not constrain to the dimensions of a phone when on an iPad.
Thanks!
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.
A recording with the original lyrics exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDH5R_BgheI
> But I have promises to keep,
> And miles to go before I sleep
I’ve been saving up to sponsor a bench on my favorite trail and this is what I’m thinking of putting on the plaque.
Another famous poem from that book is this one:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great And would suffice.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice
The title poem of the book, New Hampshire, is at least ten pages long, but ends ironically that Frost is living in Vermont.
Some say methylcobalamin.
From what I’ve tasted of each vitamin
I hold with those who favor cyanocobalamin.
But if my supplement could have a twin,
I think I know enough of niacin
To say that for nutrition methylcobalamin
Is also great
And would fit in.
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 will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
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...
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 ^_^
https://genius.com/816206
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_E...
This is where I learned of the German translation (watching the movie in German):
I wouldn't read from seriously for several more years yet, and both my friend and I became English lit undergrads.