OK i need help on this poem and i need it to be broken down and explained what it means I also need to know the poetic devices and the effect that each device and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the poem. Thank you

Lindsay



Meeting and Passing
by Robert Lee Frost
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

The basic message is two people walk down the road in opposite directions. They meet and talk at the place where they first met. They leave walking in the same direction each started in, which means that she's walking past things that he already walked past, and vice-versa.

Poetic devices- think about rhyme, meter, type of poem.

pam

Two people. Hmmm ... male & male, male & female, or female & female?

A parasol seems to be indicative of a woman, but what is the decimal point there for? Mingle and deep thrust smacks of male/female, no?

I don't personally like parentheses in a poem, especially a sonnet, and there are entirely too many one-syllable words in the poem:

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

Makes for a very tough read, especially line 2.

I go with male/female myself. It's a relationship that's becoming intimate. (True, that wouldn't be the decider nowadays....) The decimal goes with the 'figure of our being.' They're not separate people, but they haven't befome 'one flesh' yet.

Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less that two
But more than one as yet.


pam