Mending Wall: On Boundaries
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 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:
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 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 neighbors."
I first encountered this poem when I was about to graduate in high school. I am not the poetry-lover type, but this poem captivates me. I find it deeply connected to life not only psychologically and philosophically, even spiritually as well. Its imagery, poetic symbols and figurative language make it replete with meaning and subjectivity.
I was first enthralled by the first line. Walls in human relationships seem at first threatening. But as the poem progresses, it becomes clearer and more distinct. Walls are necessary. We need boundaries – well-defined and good-willed boundaries. “Good fences make good neighbors.”
The following day, he was found building the highest and sturdiest possible wall. The irony is, what is left there to wall in?
This story happened to me. It has been a valuable and meaningful lesson. It’s not that I condone isolation or ghettoism. They are extremes. We need boundaries – well-defined and good-willed boundaries. “Good fences make good neighbors.”
I found this commentary on the poem. It’s highly philosophical as it uses language of philosophy which is very relevant at our stage of formation. I agree with this:
The poem is about creating a barrier that limits the intermingling between two plane of existences, the individual and nature. This poem is about the protection of individuality and the significance of boundaries. A paradoxical situation also occur in the poem, where the narrator's neighbor has completely lost the significance or recognition of its worth beyond tradition. In this sense Frost is illustrating the negatives of placing a wall. The alienation and isolation of complete separation. Frost constantly rebuilds this wall and in doing so engages in the development of a relationship with his neighbor instead of completely isolation. Though "SOMETHING" that constantly tears down the wall is something similar to the very essence of nature. (http://www.eliteskills.com/c/13193)
