Monitoring Dalager

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

This is four classic lines from the hand of Robert Frost.

I will avoid post modern (PoMo) mumbojumbo and try to be as straightforward as possible.
It is a question of getting the metaphors right. Or just about right. Or utterly wrong. The important thing is to make the poem talk to you. Touch you even. That was two metaphors in a row.

Let’s see. We’re dealing with the woods, more than one promise, a distance of several miles and a person ‘I’.

The woods are described as a tempting container, ‘deep’ is emphasizing that the movement is into the forest, not over the forest or around the forest for that matter. But ‘I’ cannot go into the forest because of some promises that are tied to a location several miles away. And apparently in the opposite direction. Damn, huh? The repeating of the third line is a tired sigh.

But what does it mean?

Two Interpretations
1.
Wood = my bed.
Promises = finish thesis by the 1st of March
Miles to go = pages to write
Sleep = sleep.

2.
Wood = my bed.
Promises = show running application next friday at meeting.
Miles to go = hundreds of line to code.
Sleep = sleep.

This fragment of Robert Frost is a returning visitor. Like a dear old friend with a bad habit of showing up when I’m just too busy.

Another returning friend that I will deal with another day is these three lines by W. H. Auden:

The sky is darkening like a stain;
Something is going to fall like rain,
And it won’t be flowers.

This is not one of my best friends.

Dette indlæg blev skrevet Friday, 23. January 2004 kl. 3:11 og er gemt i Blah Blah. Du kan følge kommentarerne til indlægget via følgende feed RSS 2.0. Du kan springe ned til slutningen og efterlade en kommentar. Pinging er ikke tilladt i øjeblikket.