4 Times Pulitzer Prize Winner, American Literature.
BA V Semester American Literature Syllabus.
Gulbraga University , Raichur University, All State University
Mending Wall
by Robert Frost
About the author :-
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States.
- Steeple Bush. New York: Holt
- Complete Poems of Robert Frost. New York: Holt (Cape, 1951)
- Hard Not To Be King. House of Books.
- Aforesaid. New York: Holt.
- A Way Out: A One Act Play (Harbor Press).
- The Cow’s in the Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme (Slide Mountain Press).
- A Masque of Reason (Holt).
- A Masque of Mercy (Holt). Etc.
Mending Wall Poem
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 neighbour 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 neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? 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 offence.
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 neighbours.”
Summary :-
There is some force that doesn’t like walls. It causes the frozen ground to swell underneath a wall, and the wall’s upper stones then topple off in the warmth of the sun. This creates gaps in the wall so big that two people could walk through them sideby- side. And then there are the hunters who take apart the wall—that’s something different. I often have to come and fix the spots where hunters haven’t left a single stone in place, as they tried to flush out the rabbits that hide in the wall in order to make their barking dogs happy. No one has seen or heard these gaps in the wall being made. We just find them there in the spring, when it comes time to fix the wall. I reach out to my neighbor, who lives over a hill, and we find a day to get together and walk along the wall, fixing these gaps as we go. He walks on his side of the wall and I on mine, and we deal only with whatever rocks have fallen off the wall on our side of it. Some of them look like loaves of bread and some are round like balls, so we pray that they’ll stay in place, balanced on top of the wall, saying: “Don’t move until we’re gone!” Our fingers get chafed from picking up the rocks. It’s just another outside activity, each of us on our side of the wall, nothing more.
There’s no need for a wall to be there. On my neighbor’s side of the wall, there’s nothing but pine trees; my side is an apple orchard. It’s not like my apple trees are going to cross the wall and eat his pine cones, I say to him. But he just responds, “Good fences are necessary to have good neighbors.” Since it’s spring and I feel mischievous, I wonder if I could make my neighbor ask himself: “Why are they necessary? Isn’t that only true if you’re trying to keep your neighbor’s cows out of your fields? There aren’t any cows here. If I were to build a wall, I’d want to know what I was keeping in and what I was keeping out, and who was going to be offended by this. There is some force that doesn’t love a wall, that wants to pull it down.” I could propose that Elves are responsible for the gaps in the wall, but it’s not exactly Elves, and, anyway, I want my neighbor to figure it out on his own. I see him, lifting up stones, grasping them firmly by the top, in each hand, like an ancient warrior. He moves in a deep darkness not just the darkness of the woods or the trees above. He does not want to think beyond his set idea about the world, and he likes having articulated this idea so clearly. So he says it again: “Good fences are necessary to have good neighbors.”
