The last two lines express the isolation the speaker felt because his parents kept him separate and protected from "children who were rough." The children who surrounded him engaged in typical childhood roughhousing; they "ran in the street and climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams." The speaker feared them both physically,when they roughed him up, and psychologically, as they mocked his speech impediment when they followed him.
The last two lines,
And...
The last two lines express the isolation the speaker felt because his parents kept him separate and protected from "children who were rough." The children who surrounded him engaged in typical childhood roughhousing; they "ran in the street and climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams." The speaker feared them both physically,when they roughed him up, and psychologically, as they mocked his speech impediment when they followed him.
The last two lines,
And I looked another way, pretending to smile,
I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.
suggest that instead of being kept away from these children, the speaker longed to live among them to experience the give and take of childhood relationships. He understands that he would have sometimes received the same rough treatment, but if they had been intimate, he expects that he would have also received apologies from them instead of remaining estranged and isolated.
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