Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

    The narrator (may be the poet himself) of the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening stops by some woods on his way one evening. The narrator knows the owner of the woods and even where he lives. He is a bit relaxed thinking that the owner of the woods lives in the village and so he won’t see the narrator stopping here. Therefore he can continue watching the natural beauty of his snow-covered woods.

In the second stanza, the narrator of the poem says that his dear horse, whom he is using as his carriage, must think it strange to stop here between the woods and the frozen lake in a dark evening, as he normally stops near a farmhouse. The narrator calls his horse “my little horse”, as it is very dear to him or may be the horse is a little one in the literal sense, i.e., a pony. It may also suggest that the speaker is a humble and ordinary citizen and cannot afford to buy an expensive horse. He also personifies the horse by indicating that it has a thought process and also referring it as “he” in the next stanza.

In the last  stanza the narrator suggest that the weather is cold enough to freeze a lake. The expression ‘darkest evening’ could suggest several things. May be the narrator-traveller was very depressed due to his long journey or the cold weather. Otherwise it may also refer to the longest night of the year – the night with the most hours of darkness. In that case, it is 21st or 22nd December, when the winter solstice occurs in the northern hemisphere.