Robert Frost

Meeting and Passing

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

Footprints, mathematical language

Frost shifts from narrative to geometry—the meeting leaves physical traces that create a mathematical problem. 'Less than two / But more than one' describes their interaction as a paradox: two separate people whose presence together creates a third entity.

We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew

Footprints, mathematical language

Frost shifts from narrative to geometry—the meeting leaves physical traces that create a mathematical problem. 'Less than two / But more than one' describes their interaction as a paradox: two separate people whose presence together creates a third entity.

Footprints, mathematical language

Frost shifts from narrative to geometry—the meeting leaves physical traces that create a mathematical problem. 'Less than two / But more than one' describes their interaction as a paradox: two separate people whose presence together creates a third entity.

The figure of our being less than two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.

Parasol, decimal point

The parasol becomes a writing instrument, literally punctuating the dust. A decimal point is the precise mathematical symbol that separates wholes from fractions—she's marking the exact spot where they meet, turning their encounter into a measurable moment.

And all the time we talked you seemed to see

Smile at the dust, deflection

She looks down while they talk, not at him. The parenthetical aside ('Oh, it was without prejudice to me!') reveals his anxiety—he's reassuring himself that her distraction isn't rejection, but the very need to reassure suggests it bothered him.

Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)

Smile at the dust, deflection

She looks down while they talk, not at him. The parenthetical aside ('Oh, it was without prejudice to me!') reveals his anxiety—he's reassuring himself that her distraction isn't rejection, but the very need to reassure suggests it bothered him.

Reversal, crossing paths

The final couplet undoes the meeting: he walks past her starting point, she walks past his. They've exchanged positions but not truly connected. The poem ends where it began—two separate paths that briefly intersected.

Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.

Reversal, crossing paths

The final couplet undoes the meeting: he walks past her starting point, she walks past his. They've exchanged positions but not truly connected. The poem ends where it began—two separate paths that briefly intersected.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Meeting as Mathematical Problem

Frost structures this encounter as an equation rather than a romantic moment. The footprints they leave 'as if we drew / The figure of our being less than two / But more than one' transforms a casual meeting into a geometric puzzle. Two people create something that is neither singular nor dual—a third presence made of their intersection. This language is deliberately abstract and cold, which is Frost's point: the poem refuses sentimentality. Instead of describing emotional connection, he describes physical traces and spatial relationships.

The parasol becomes the key instrument: it 'Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.' A decimal point is where whole numbers become fractions, where precision begins. Her gesture marks the exact spot and moment of their meeting, but also suggests a kind of punctuation—an ending as much as a marking. She's not drawing them together; she's placing a precise dot on the ground, fixing the location of something already passing.

The Distance They Don't Close

What's crucial is what doesn't happen: they talk, but she looks away. The parenthetical '(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)' is Frost's most honest moment—it's a disclaimer that reveals anxiety. He needs to convince himself (and us) that her distraction wasn't a rejection. The poem suggests two people going through the motions of connection without actually connecting.

The final couplet seals this: 'Afterward I went past what you had passed / Before we met and you what I had passed.' They've literally swapped positions, walking each other's paths, but this exchange is empty. Meeting doesn't mean staying together; it means crossing paths and continuing in opposite directions. Frost captures something real about brief encounters—the way two people can occupy the same space without truly meeting, and how that near-miss can lodge in memory precisely because it remains incomplete.