Memorizing poems, speeches, and soliloquies ...

Memorization of texts is simultaneously the most useless thing I learned in school, and the one that I most frequently call upon in my adult life. What do I gain by knowing that "The quality of mercy is not strained/It droppeth like the gentle rain in heaven unto the place beneath -- it is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives and him that receives. It befits the sceptred monarch better than his crown...."

Nothing -- yet I still recite it whenever it's appropriate. Not ALL my teachers assigned things for memorization, but a few of them did -- and I still have at least bits of most of those things.

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.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near.
Something something something that rhymes with "shake"
This darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
Something goes here that rhymes with "deep"
Something about wind, maybe, and then "downy flake".

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.

Literal metaphors

It just occurred to me that there are probably people in the world who have never actually BEEN in the woods with fresh-fallen snow, or even more, fresh-FALLING-snow around, and may not have experienced the peacefulness of snowy woods.

Some of those people may have read poems like Robert Frost's, or descriptions, of the quiet and peacefulness of snowy woods, or even the quiet of snowy city streets. And may have thought of it as a metaphor.

It's not, actually. Fresh-fallen snow is probably among the best forms of naturally-occurring acoustic baffling. And when it's ACTIVELY snowing as WELL as thick on the ground, you've got airborne baffling as well as baffling covering every potentially sound-reflecting surface. Everything actually, physically IS quieter.

And it's amazingly peaceful and relaxing.