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. Holes in the wall
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 Shift, He walks the wall with his neighbor
He wonders why they need a wall
And set the wall between us once again. They meet up to fix the wall
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:n
There where it is we do not need the wall: Shift: He wonders why they need a
He is all pine and I am apple orchard. wall
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, He wonders what they are keeping in/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." Repetition!
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. Holes in the wall
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 Shift, He walks the wall with his neighbor
He wonders why they need a wall
And set the wall between us once again. They meet up to fix the wall
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:n
There where it is we do not need the wall: Shift: He wonders why they need a
He is all pine and I am apple orchard. wall
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, He wonders what they are keeping in/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." Repetition!
An Analysis
This poem is about a man trying to figure out why he needs barriers. It starts off with describing how the wall frequently falls apart from events like hunting. He then talks about how him and his neighbor meet up and walk the length of the wall to fix the holes that came to be from the past year. He wonders why there needs to be a wall, because they are not trying to keep anything in or out, but the neighbor just responds "Good fences make good neighbors." These thoughts that Frost had about the wall support the poem's theme that walls often represent more than blocking physical objects.
This poem can be connected to the image on the right because the image is of a tattered old wall that is falling apart, and this poem is about a wall that is also falling apart. And neither seem to be keeping anything in or out.
Shifts in the poem occur when Frost starts walking the wall with his neighbor, and when he wonders why he needs a wall in the first place.
This poem can be connected to the image on the right because the image is of a tattered old wall that is falling apart, and this poem is about a wall that is also falling apart. And neither seem to be keeping anything in or out.
Shifts in the poem occur when Frost starts walking the wall with his neighbor, and when he wonders why he needs a wall in the first place.