In many of his poems, Robert Frost uses images of and nature, especially trees and forests, to convey his thoughts and emotions. The turning of the seasons, a wooded area, and other things common in nature, were also common in Frosts poems. Many people attest this to his working as a farmer on an old New England farm for part of his life, operating a failing New Hampshire Chicken farm. His poems were also often in first person. It helps show a sense of knowledge, so the reader can think that the person may have lived the experience, and is thus more knowledgeable for it.
In Frosts poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" (Literature and Its Writers, 807), Frost writes about an experience in the first person, of a man on a journey, who stops by a some woods. He comments on how he knows the man who owns them, but how the person lives in the town, and wont see him. He also mentions that the woods are filling up with snow "To watch his woods, fill up with snow" (807). So far, there is woods, and snow. In the next stanza, he mentions a frozen lake, and that it is the darkest night of the year. Now we have a lake, and the dark night sky. The next stanza mentions sounds, and how the only two he hears are his horses" reigns, and the sweep of the wind brushing the snow. "The only other sounds the sweep/ Of easy wind and downy flake" (807) And finally, he makes reference to how the woods look, inviting, and interesting. But the man has too much to do before he explores them.
This poem is full of nature as a conveyance of emotions. The first thing Frost mentions is the woods. Woods are common images of darkness or mystery; they have a sense of the unknown in them. Now, Frost never mentions how the trees in the forest are. One image is of calm, peaceful evergreens, the other, of trees that have gone bare in the fall, dark, and foreboding. The next thing he mentions is snow. Snow is another major image in the poem, because it is in direct contrast to the third major image, the dark.
