Two Look At Two Analysis

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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I think that the wall stands for a strong obstacle that may need help overcoming and although it's not meant to be conquered, there is something to say for trying. The deer stands for the guidance provided by nature and the presence of a higher being.

| Posted on 2009-06-17 | by a guest

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I think the deer represents lord jesus christ in his quest to save humanity from the evils of the antichrist which is the mountain.

| Posted on 2008-12-03 | by a guest

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the deer show that a carneval has once taken place here but now nature has overridden it. the humans have come to enjoy the carneval but the deer are telling them that life is not all fun and games and their love should guide them down the mountain. the old fence is reminance of the carneval that has broken down over the years into a harmless fence, unable to hurt the deer and no longer able to corrupt the souls of humans.

| Posted on 2008-03-20 | by a guest

.: frost :.

the deerare more human-like the hikers. The mountain represents the challenes of life and the stagnant hikers have come to a halt. The deer on the other hand have been able to carry on, they are a gift from nature to show the hikers the way.

| Posted on 2008-03-20 | by a guest

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i think that this poem is just another one of frost's continual nature poems. he uses nature to try to describe relationships that need to be worked out and fixed. "with thoughts of a path back" frost is somewhat refering to his poem "the road not taken" in which he decides to take the path that almost no one has traveled and find out the opportunity that is ahead of him. this "path back" was the wrong path to take becasue it was rough and did not go that well.

| Posted on 2007-04-30 | by a guest