Indeed, the third verse is almost a filler, since it gives us no new information. The writer admitted that this verse caused him some anxiety, since no self-respecting rider would use a fancy harness on a working horse, and the mention of harness bells in the first line might have been the cause of some derision, at least among critics. Why has he undertaken a long journey, so late in the day, and at such an inclement time of year? Could he not have stayed in the village, and found lodgings for himself and stabling for his horse? One possible explanation is that he had no money to pay for it, and so had no choice but to ride home, through the night if necessary. The narrator now tells us that he is far from any shelter, and it is mid-winter. Who is the narrator referring to, and is he important? Is he the person that the narrator went to see? Why does the narrator care if he is being observed? It is not illegal to admire some trees from a public road, and who has not stopped occasionally to watch snow falling? Never mind. This immediately raises a question, although is it easily missed, coming so early in the poem. In the opening verse, the narrator places us in woods outside a village. Fortunately, Frost can be enigmatic, so if we want to make sense of this poem, we must be prepared dig a little.

However, if a literary work does not address the human condition in some way, and has only creamy charm to commend it, it must be considered inconsequential. The poem makes few demands on the reader: the structure and rhyme scheme are conventional, the poem is short, as are the word and line lengths, and it contains no literary references or allusions.

It stands equal to Wordsworth's Daffodils, inasmuch as it is picturesque and enormously popular.

As such, it is superbly crafted, and with few blemishes. Taken at face value, Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is a pastoral poem describing a rider's pause on a journey to admire some scenery.

Poem stopping by the woods