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Two Look At Two
Love and forgetting might have carried them
A little further up the mountain side
With night so near, but not much further up.
They must have halted soon in any case
With thoughts of a path back, how rough it was
With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness;
When they were halted by a tumbled wall
With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this,
Spending what onward impulse they still had
In One last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. 'This is all,' they sighed,
Good-night to woods.' But not so; there was more.
A doe from round a spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall, as near the wall as they.
She saw them in their field, they her in hers.
The difficulty of seeing what stood still,
Like some up-ended boulder split in two,
Was in her clouded eyes; they saw no fear there.
She seemed to think that two thus they were safe.
Then, as if they were something that, though strange,
She could not trouble her mind with too long,
She sighed and passed unscared along the wall.
'This, then, is all. What more is there to ask?'
But no, not yet. A snort to bid them wait.
A buck from round the spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall as near the wall as they.
This was an antlered buck of lusty nostril,
Not the same doe come back into her place.
He viewed them quizzically with jerks of head,
As if to ask, 'Why don't you make some motion?
Or give some sign of life? Because you can't.
I doubt if you're as living as you look."
Thus till he had them almost feeling dared
To stretch a proffering hand -- and a spell-breaking.
Then he too passed unscared along the wall.
Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from.
'This must be all.' It was all. Still they stood,
A great wave from it going over them,
As if the earth in one unlooked-for favour
Had made them certain earth returned their love.
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| Two Look At Two |
Summary and Analysis
Introduction:
The poem Two Look At Two by Robert Frost from New Hampshire deals with the contrast between Man and Nature, in the process bringing out beauty, horror, love and loneliness. Here we have verious factors pointed by the author, allow to enhance Man which contradict with Nature. But at the ultimate sense it is corresponding mysteriously with one another. Keen observation of Man's Nature in a comparative manner, collaborate with the mother Nature.
Summary:
A young couple go for an evening walk. Darkness overtakes them some way up a wooded hillside. They regret that they cannot go deeper into Nature. "This is all" they sigh. However, a doe and a buck appear on the other side of the wall and stare at the couple in surprise, and then pass on. "Two had seen two" still they stood and it seemed as if by that incident earth "Had made them certain earth returned their love". Human beings can reach Nature only in thought. In physical terms they have to stop at the wall. They cannot penetrate too deep or identify themselves with Nature. 'It was all'. The words recall the poem The Most of It, but here the doe and buck represent a sign of something parallel in Nature and Man.
Critical Comments:
Frost's attitude towards Nature is that Man and Nature are separated by boundaries and between them there is an armed and friendly truce. In spite of being 'certain earth returned their love', one also feels that one should not go too far in delving into the mysteries of Nature. The poem shows Frost's powers of attentive observation and rhythmic spell-binding. Very fluent rhythmic verse pattern taking lovebirds toward the mysterious world of nature.