As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less that two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.
~ Robert Frost (1874 – 1963)
I discovered this poem by Frost only recently when I was browsing through Frost’s poems on the web. One of his most famous poems, The Road Not Taken is one of my favourite poems.
For some reason, Meeting and Passing strikes a chord with me. We meet and pass people all the time and in some small way, we do share something in common just by the mere fact that we’re part of the same environment at that point in time. Maybe Frost is also trying to say that we do not take enough time out to talk with others. To share. To exchange pleasantries and experiences.
There seems to me to be a hint of wistfulness in this poem. As if Frost were unwilling to let this lady go, and now all that he’s left with that reminds him of her are the things and places she had walked past before she met him.