The speaker is quite candid and frank with the reader. There isn't difficult vocabulary to navigate in the poem. The speaker sticks with simple words and doesn't spend a lot of time embellishing details. We have man that stops by some woods filling with snow, and he thinks they are "lovely, dark, and deep."

The speaker also appears somewhat pensive, philosophical, and thoughtful. Anyone that has "zoned out" at a beautiful nature scene can relate. Sometimes people get lost in thought while viewing beautiful and peaceful nature scenes. Our speaker is experiencing this kind of pensive moment when his mind is clear and in the moment but his subconscious is still working away to tell him that he has "promises to keep." This is when I think the tone takes a shift toward being a blend of weary and resigned. The speaker knows that he has to follow through on his promises, but the repeated line about sleeping sends the message that our traveler is tired.

In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Frost's tone is sincere in its appreciation of nature and is full of a gentle longing.

Support for the sincerity of Frost's tone comes from the deep and simple pleasure the speaker takes in the serene beauty of a nighttime snowfall. Although it is unusual for him to stop this way—we know this because his horse thinks "it queer"—the speaker feels compelled to do so by the beauty of the scene. Figurative language that conveys this sincere appreciation of the natural world includes the speaker's description, using imagery, that "the woods are lovely, dark, and deep" and his noting the "easy wind and downy flake."

The tone of longing comes through at the end of the poem, in which the speaker states:

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.

The obligations on the speaker tug him gently away from the peace and beauty of the snowy woods. Like all of us, he has duties that keep him from fully enjoying the gift of nature. He is experiencing wonder at the moment but has a tiring journey ahead of him. He would rather stay where he is, but he has to content himself with the fleeting moment in which he can fully enjoy the evening snow. He has to push himself to move, repeating to himself that he has a long way to go, as if to urge himself onward.

Frost's tone is sincere in wanting to convey to the reader the message that it is important to enjoy the simple pleasures of life while we can.

In the first stanza of the poem, the mood is one of wonder and admiration because the speaker has stopped in the woods to watch the snow fall. This is clearly an enjoyable and interesting activity for the speaker since there is no other reason for stopping in the middle of the woods, as expressed in the second stanza:

My horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near.

In the third stanza, the mood becomes calm and serene. Alongside the sound of the horse's bells, for example, the only sound that can be heard is that of the "easy wind." This creates a sense of tranquillity which is further reinforced by the closing two lines of the poem in which the speaker comments that there are "miles" before he can sleep. By repeating these lines, the speaker soothes and calms the reader, just as the snowfall seems to soothe and calm his self.

The mood of the poem's narrator is one of longing. He stops in the midst of a busy journey to watch the snow fall. He is in the woods, on horseback, and it is, he says, the "darkest evening of the year." We as readers can imagine the beauty of the white snow falling against the dark woods.

The speaker would love to stay right where he is, watching this beautiful and still scene. However, he must move onward. He has places to be. He really has no time to linger. As he states:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Using simple language, the poet captures one of those fleeting moments in which, no matter how busy we are, we are so struck by the beauty around us that we feel compelled to stop and appreciate it. The poem captures the longing we all have to be less harried and to experience the world's beauty more fully.

In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, the speaker of the poem (which of course is not necessarily Frost himself) stops his horse-drawn carriage (or sled, since it is snowing) in front of a forest (woods). 

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

As the last line of the stanza suggests, he simply wants to watch the snow falling on the trees. The second stanza, however, suggests something beyond an idyllic postcard-like winter scene. There is nothing nearby (note the sense of isolation) except a frozen lake, and it is "the darkest evening of the year."

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

The third stanza reinforces the tranquility of this quiet winter scene by giving us the sound of harness bells and a gentle wind blowing the snow. The final stanza adds to the more ominous aspects of this peaceful scene. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

While the woods are lovely, they are also "dark and deep." The next word is but, implying that the speaker is somehow attracted to the deepness and darkness of the woods. It is perhaps a figurative longing for something more or even something darker and more sinister than his present life affords. Whatever longing he expresses, fulfilling it is not possible for him, as he has "miles to go" before he can stop to rest. Because the line is repeated, we get the sense that the speaker is weary of the path he is on and knows he cannot do the figurative exploring he longs to do.

What seems to be a simple stop to watch the snow is really a picture of the speaker's desire or attraction for something more and his regret that he can do nothing to satisfy it.

The presence of the horse reminds us of the obligations that the speaker has yet to fulfill on his life's journey. He still has miles to go before he sleeps, before he comes to the end of his life, and he can only carry on with his journey by horse (i.e., if he keeps his promises). Without the horse, without the obligations that it represents, his life would effectively be at an end.

As the speaker pauses to survey the silent, wintry scene, the little horse shows its impatience by jingling its harness. Somehow, it seems to understand that the journey must continue and that the speaker must keep his promises. It is notable that it is the horse, the nagging sense of obligation that eats away at the speaker, that provides a rare sense of movement to the poem. For the speaker remains inert, seemingly unable to choose whether he should give up the ghost or continue on with his life with all its obligations.

It seems like the speaker might be just a little lonely based on the way he talks about his horse. He attributes a great deal of understanding to the horse, assuming that the horse is thinking that it is odd for them to be making an unscheduled stop in the woods, nowhere near a farmhouse, and totally alone in the night. Further, when the horse shakes its head, the speaker assumes that the horse is purposely jingling his harness bells in order to question him about the reason for the stop and if he has made some error. Other than the horse, the speaker is alone, and he says that he still has "miles to go" before he can rest. This sounds like a bit of a lonely road he travels, and so his descriptions of the horse make it seem as though he thinks of the horse almost as another person in order to be less lonely.

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem by Robert Frost consisting of four quatrains. It is told from the point of view of a nameless first-person narrator who is riding his horse along a trail through the New England forest on the longest night of the year, i.e. the winter solstice. 

The narrator thinks that he knows the owner of the woodland surrounding the trail but is not absolutely sure, as no houses are visible from where he is currently riding. The reason he is thinking about this is that he is somewhat concerned about trespassing, although as the owner lives in the village he won't see the narrator out in the woods. Thus the first sense we get of tone is that the narrator is concerned with politeness and also a certain scrupulousness.

Next, the narrator thinks his horse may be confused by his stopping with "no farmhouse near" because that is not something the narrator normally does. This emphasizes that the tone of the narrator is polite and considerate, and also slightly tentative.

The bleak landscape and time of year add a melancholic aspect to the tone, further emphasized by the narrator's desire to stop for some reason not specified in the snow on a deserted road. The sense of the beauty of the woods and the narrator's having things to do which prevent him from staying, and the mention of "miles to go before I sleep" add a melancholic flavor to the tone.

The poem deals with many themes, and its attention is focused on the speaker's infatuation with nature and the natural world he wants to be a part of. When we read the poem for the first time, we realize it is quite straightforward on the surface. The speaker  presumably passes through the woods in a horse-drawn carriage and stops to admire the winter evening scenery. He seems captivated by the woods filling up with snow. 

Nevertheless, metaphorically speaking, the woods may represent a fantasy world, which the speaker yearns for. He desires to belong in it as opposed to the civilized world of promises and obligations which he hesitates to go back to. The world of wilderness both calms him and puzzles him, and the speaker wishes he could remain in it for a long time. Yet, he knows that he has not fulfilled all the obligations in his everyday world and that he must return to it because he has "promises to keep and miles to go before" he "sleeps." The verb "sleep" may symbolically refer to death, which may be embodied by this world of wilderness. The reason why this is plausible is because the speaker refers to the woods as "lovely, dark and deep," with the last two adjectives being reminiscent of death. Death is often depicted in terms of darkness, depth and mystery, so it is not impossible to think about the woods in terms of death.

This is a richly symbolic poem where things work on two levels - a literal level and a more symbolic level. This poem is usually used as an example of symbolism to help students explore symbolic meaning, or what lies beneath the surface. Therefore, it is important to try and work out or discern what are symbols in this poem to discover that Robert Frost is trying to say through his poem. There is much more to this poem than a literal pause in a wintry journey. The secret to working out symbolic meaning is to pay attention to clues the poet plants, such as repetition, emphasis, word associations, and mysterious images.

Bearing this in mind, examining the poem, an in particular the last stanza, we discover that this poem is actually about the desire for death or "rest" against the long days of hard work ahead. Consider the final stanza:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Notice how the woods are described in an attractive way - they are "lovely" but also "dark" and "deep", however, in spite of the temptation the speaker feels to stay here and rest, to "sleep", he recognises that unfortunately, duty calls, for he has "promises to keep" and obligations to fulfil. The repetition of the final line really serves to underline the reluctance that the speaker has in continuing with his journey and the work of life - "sleep" is an attractive prospect, especially in such a place of beauty.

Thus the theme of the poem is to do with obligations and duty, and how we need to keep pressing on with our commitments, even though, at times, rest or death is a very attractive prospect.

The speaker in the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is alone with his horse, and there is no dialogue in the poem. However, we can analyze how the speaker communicates his meaning to the reader through his choice of words.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

The poem begins with the first stanza, quoted above. Here, the speaker reveals that he thinks he knows who owns in the woods where he has stopped for a rest. He also notes that the man "is in the village," where his actual house is located. That means that the man "will not see" the speaker spending time in the woods that belong to this other man. The speaker "watch[es]" as snow piles up in this other man's land. Whatever the man experiences out in these woods will be known by him alone.

The second stanza continues, as the speaker considers how the only other living being in the scene, his horse, may be feeling:

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

"Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" continues a long tradition of nature poems in which a speaker captures a moment of quiet joy. It is short, it uses simple language, and it is lyrical—it expresses emotion.

In the poem, the narrator recalls a time in which he was so struck by the beauty of the snow falling at night in a woods that he simply stopped and enjoyed the scene. The poem's theme is the importance of taking the time out to experience the powerful but fleeting moments of beauty in the world. A second theme is the poet's deep longing to have more time in his life to enjoy such simple moments of stillness and joy.

The poem turns on an implicit comparison between the speaker's normally busy and hurried life and the deeply peaceful, even holy experience of watching the snow fall silently in a dark woods. We know this stopping is out of the ordinary for the speaker because his horse shakes his harness bells, wondering why they are not moving. We understand, too, that the speaker normally has a busy life because of the plaintive, repeated refrain:

And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The speaker experiences a liminal space outside of his ordinary life, and his soul is deeply touched by the experience.

The poem has an effortless feeling of simplicity, and yet is highly structured, with an AABA rhyme scheme that alters to AAAA in the last line. It creates a comforting sense of rhythm with its even iambic tetrameter meter. The complexity underneath its seeming simplicity echoes the speaker's complex emotional response to a seemingly simple snowfall, which comes to symbolize for him all the moments of beauty he normally rushes past.