Born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, the poet began to take an interest in reading and writing poetry in high school in Lawrence. My Butterfly was his first published poem on November 8, 1894, in The Independent. Frost’s poetry, such as ‘Mending Wall,’ was greatly inspired by his wife, Elinor Miriam White, who died in 1938. Contemporary British poets like Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves also greatly influenced Frost.
By the 1920s, Robert Frost was immensely recognized as a poet in America, and with each new book—his fame and honors increased. Though his work mainly relates to the life and landscape of New England—and though he wrote his poetry in traditional verse forms and metrics and remained completely aloof from the poetic movements—he is more than a regional poet. He is an author of universal themes; he used quite an easy-to-understand language with layers of irony and ambiguity.
It's helpful to know that 'Mending Wall' is a dramatic lyric poem. It conveys a conversation between two neighbors who meet annually to repair a stone wall that divides their properties. The poem is used to speak about division (physical and metaphorical).
Mending WallRobert FrostSomething 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 repairWhere 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 lineAnd 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 ballsWe 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 acrossAnd 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 wonderIf I could put a notion in his head:"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't itWhere there are cows? But here there are no cows.Before I built a wall I'd ask to knowWhat 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 ratherHe said it for himself. I see him thereBringing a stone grasped firmly by the topIn 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 wellHe says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Explore Mending Wall
- 1 AboutMending Wall
- 2 Style and Form
- 3 Detailed Analysis
- 4 FinalComments
AboutMending Wall
Frost’s ‘Mending Wall,’ which can also be read in full here, was published in 1914 by David Nutt. It is considered one of the most analyzed and anthologized poems in modern literature. In the poem, the poet is a New England farmer who walks along with his neighbor in the spring season to repair the stone wall that falls between their two farms. As they start mending the wall, the narrator asks his neighbor why we need a wall. The poet says that there is something that doesn’t love a wall, but his neighbor says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
‘Mending Wall’ principally analyses the nature of human relationships. When you read ‘Mending Wall,‘ it feels like peeling off an onion. The reader analyses, philosophizes, and dives deep to search for a definite conclusion he cannot find. Yet the quest is more thrilling and rewarding than the Holy Grail itself. The reader understands life in a new way and challenges all definitions.
At the very outset, the poem takes you to the nature of things. Therefore, the narrator says he does not want a wall to exist in nature. He says man makes many walls, but they all get damaged and destroyed by nature or by the hunters searching for rabbits for their hungry dogs.
Hence, as soon as the spring season starts, he (the narrator) and his neighbor set out to repair the wall separating their properties. Though the narrator comes together with his neighbor to repair the wall, he regards it as stupidity. He believes that both of them don’t need a wall. He asks why there should be a wall when his neighbor has only pine trees, and he has apples. How could his apple trees cross the border and eat his neighbor’s pine cones?
Moreover, there is no chance of offending one another as they don’t have any cows in their homes. While the narrator tries to make his neighbor understand that they don’t need a wall, his neighbor is a stone-headed savage who only believes in his father’s age-old saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Style and Form
The baseline meter of Frost’s ‘Mending Wall’ is, although blank verse, some lines go beside the blank verse’s characteristic lock-step iambs, five abreast. The poet has made perfect use of five stressed syllables in each line of the poem, but he does extensive variation in the feet so that the natural speech-like quality of the verse can continue to be sustained.
While the poem doesn’t have any stanza breaks, obvious end-rhymes, or rhyming patterns, several end-words (for example., wall, hill, balls, wall, and well sun, thing, stone, mean, line, and again or game, them, and him twice) share assonance. Besides, the poem has internal rhymes, which are slanted and subtle. Moreover, the poem does not use fancy words. All words are short and conversational. This may be why each word in ‘Mending Wall’ creates a perfect feel and sound by resonating consummately.
Detailed Analysis
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
See AlsoThe Meaning and Origin of ‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbours’Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Definition, Meaning And OriginRobert Frost: “Mending Wall” by Austin Allen | Poetry FoundationA Summary and Analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘Mending 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,
From lines 1 to 9, the narrator says that something mysterious in nature does not want walls. Something always destroys the walls, creating a gap in the wall through which two people can easily pass. The narrator says that sometimes the wall is damaged by careless hunters who pull down the stones of the walls in search of rabbits to please their barking dogs.
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:
From lines 9 to 22, the narrator says that though no one has ever heard the noise or seen anyone making the gaps, they exist when it is time to mend the walls during spring. They are realities, so the narrator asks his neighbor to go beyond the hill and discover who created these gaps.
One day, when both (narrator and neighbor) decide to walk along the wall, they are surprised to see stones scattered on the ground. They see that some stones are shaped like bread loaves, while a few are round. Due to their mysterious shape, the narrator and neighbor find putting them in their previous position difficult.
Seeing the unusual shape of these stones, the narrator thinks of using some magic trick to place the stones back on the wall. Though all through the process of tackling the stones, their fingers become too rough and make them exhausted, it is like an outdoor game for them, wherein the wall works as a net, and both (the narrator and his neighbor) are opponents.
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
From lines 22 to 36, the narrator makes every possible effort to make his neighbor understand that we don’t need a wall. He asks why he has a wall when he has only pine trees, and I have only apples. How can his apple trees trespass the wall border and eat his neighbor’s pine cones?
Moreover, there is no chance of offending as they don’t also have any cows at their homes. While the narrator tries to make his neighbor understand that they don’t need a wall, as there is something that does not love a wall, his neighbor is a stone-headed savage who continues to believe in his father’s age-old cliché that “Good fences make good neighbors.”
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.’
From lines 37 to 45 of ‘Mending Wall’:Though all through the poem, the narrator wants to put his notion into his neighbor’s mind, the kind of imagination he makes to convince his neighbor about the existence of wall (s) sometimes also makes me think twice about the poet. For example, let’s take these lines wherein the narrator tells his friend (neighbor) that there is something like a non-human entity as elves come and break the walls.
We all know that elves are supernatural beings that are tiny in size and can only be seen in mythological stories and folklore. But immediately, when the narrator changes his opinion and feels that it is not the work of elves but rather some power in nature, I feel relieved as the narrator finally talks sense. He says it is the work of nature that works against any walls and barriers.
However, the narrator gets immensely irritated to see his neighbor firmly holding a stone and looking like an ancient stone-age man getting armed to fight. The narrator feels that his neighbor is too ignorant to convince. He always wants to be stuck and follow his father’s words that good fences make good neighbors.
‘Mending Wall’ is one of my favorite poems by Frost. The poem suggests a wiser perspective on the boundary wall. Still, it also tells how good fences make good neighbors and how we can keep our relationship with our neighbors peaceful and stable by establishing walls. This poem also makes us realize the importance of walls and boundaries between two countries. In our lives, where a wall acts as a hurdle for seemingly unsociable people, it also helps respect your neighbor’s privacy. After all, we live in a civilized society. It is always better to maintain a distance, and good fences keep that distance maintained.
