ONCE on the kind of day called “weather breeder,”
When the heat slowly hazes and the sun
By its own power seems to be undone,
I was half boring through, half climbing through
A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar
And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated,
And sorry I ever left the road I knew,
I paused and rested on a sort of hook
That had me by the coat as good as seated,
And since there was no other way to look,
Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue,
Stood over me a resurrected tree,
A tree that had been down and raised again-
A barkless spectre. He had halted too,
As if for fear of treading upon me.
I saw the strange position of his hands-
Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands
Of wire with something in it from men to men.
“You here?” I said. “Where aren’t you nowadays
And what’s the news you carry-if you know?
And tell me where you’re off for-Montreal?
Me? I’m not off for anywhere at all.
Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways
Half looking for the orchid Calypso.”

Analysis, meaning and summary of Robert Frost's poem An Encounter

5 Comments

  1. rissa says:

    Mybe he lost somene an hes imaganing that the tree is the loved one he lost and that loved on is tring to talk to him…

  2. mary gonzalez says:

    the encounter brings a fimilarity to many people including myself. when you have those moments when you see someone that you either hardly know or knew better than yourself and yet you have drifted apart, and you see them there. in front of you as if you want to run up to them and greet them yet something unexplainably stops you in mid tracks. what is it that always makes you stop?

  3. aNdy says:

    Dude this one went right over your head didn’t it the resurrected tree is a telephone poll…not Jesus, nice try though. Don’t believe me? look this poem up in his book “for young people”

  4. Shav says:

    this poem may look short but it has alot of meaning like when he talks about the resurrected tree he is talking about Jesus

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Robert Frost better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.