Mending Wall
By Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Few words about the theme of the poem.
" And miles to go before I sleep" we know this philosophical line has been penned by the famous American poet Robert Frost. Many other prudent lines we find in the poem " Mending Wall " written by this poet. The theme of the poem " Mending Wall " has crossed the limitation of two gardens, two families , the boundary of a limited society, it is pervasive among nations. The poem " Mending Wall " is composed in the year 1914,the year when the First World War broke out. The subject matter of the poem starts in the garden or field of the speaker poet and his neighbour but ends in the global arena, the First World War . Thus the poem has become universal in true sense.
The subject matter of the poem is very simple,the mending or repairing of the wall between the garden of the poet and his neighbour. Some boulders are displaced and a gap is prominent in the wall. Nobody knows who has made the gap in the wall. Poet's belief is that nature has made it and in is the indication that "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Both the poet and his neighbour have worked hard to set the boulders.The poet thinks whether the wall is necessary in that place.His neighbour confirms the necessity of the wall saying that "good fences make good neighbour ."
" But here there are no cows ",the poet says. He says this to refute the expression of his neighbour : "good fences make good neighbour ."This expression is true where any one or both of the parties do have cows, as this quadruped cares little to cross the boundary and champ or damage the crops or the plants of the other. Besides, there is nothing to be swallowed by the cows here as " He is all pine and I am apple orchard." The apple trees of the poet's garden can never eat the cones of the pines. So the wall is absolutely unjust and unnecessary at this place. This wall may be made out of practice or in traditional sense. At this point the poet seems to suggest that some elves, the non-human agency, wants the wall to be broken down and they have made the gap in the wall protesting the existence of it here .
