SOURCE: Thompson, Lawrance. “Yes, I Suppose I am a Puritan.” In Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915-1938, pp. 236-39. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.

In the following excerpt, Thompson describes the process by which Frost wrote “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Fatigued and yet elated, after finishing the rough draft of “New Hampshire” in one stretch of work, Frost was not immediately aware that he had written straight through the short June night. When he put his pen down on the dining-room table and stretched, looking out through the living-room window, he was surprised to see that there was light in the east and that the syringa bush at the edge of the front lawn was already coming out of darkness. With a sense of unusual excitement, he stood up, walked stiffly to the front door, opened it, descended the stone steps to the...