'Mending Wall' (Robert Frost, 1916)

[pinto]

I've always loved Frost's ability to set big pictures in a smaller, local frame. And he does so with an ambiguity that gives all a voice.

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 outdoor 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."

From "Complete Poems of Robert Frost", 1916

[Kurovski]

1. K&R. (nt)

[Kurovski]

2. Just the sounds alone made when read aloud are sad, small and quiet.

[pinto]

4. I think poetry's meant to be read out loud. The words, pauses and all.

Every so often I'll sit at morning coffee and read pieces of Shakespeare 'cast' aloud, just to hear the words.

[Kurovski]

6. Agreed.

In younger days I used to read plays aloud to myself, including Shakespeare. Those were theater days, and it was good practice.

[EFerrari]

9. I have this and others on tape -- that I've nearly worn out.

Frost's voice and his reading are so rich, just terrific. :)

[Colobo]

3. One of the first poems in English I had to read. I never forgot it.

[RFKJrNews]

5. was Robert Frost's poem a metaphor...

...for the isolationist stance America had about entering WWI, which at the time, the majority of our countrymen and women felt was "Europe's war," something we had no business getting into.

"Good fences make good neighbors" was the mindset of most Americans in the early 20th century. Frost seems to be giving us a little nudge here.

Wonderful poem, always one of my favorites. Thanks for posting!

[EFerrari]

10. It certainly can be read that way. n/t

[Kurovski]

11. I think it's like the OP states:

Frost creates "...an ambiguity that gives all a voice."

The timeline would certainly fit your interpretation.

[pinto]

17. I think it's definitely rooted in the time (1916). He disagrees

with the neighbor at the outset ('Something there is that doesn't love a wall') realizing the futility of it all, yet wants the guy to come to that conclusion on his own.

And, still, goes through the motions of placing stone on stone. And 'mending' the wall.

It's an understated eloquence and a statement on the time I think.

[Kurovski]

7. Kick

I'd love to see this on the Greatest Page. If nothing else, it would provide a few moments of introspection, which I think would be a good thing right about now.

I hope some people might agree, and find the poem itself to help open another avenue in the mind, if only for a few moments.

[EFerrari]

8. "like an old stone savage armed"

One of my very favorites. :)

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out,/And to whom I was like t

Words to ponder, in these days of "Homeland" "Security".

[pinto]

18. Yeah.

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.

[KoKo]

13. K&R...Thanks! Hadn't read that in years....it's a good time to re-read...

:-)'s

[KoKo]

15. ...

[Kurovski]

14. A kick. (nt)

[RFKJrNews]

16. Kick! Let's keep this ball in the air

In hopes that many of our DU'ers will take a moment to read, think, and feel...

[Kurovski]

19. OK. (nt)