Relevant Background | Summary | Themes | Tones
Imagery | Sound Effects

Mending Wall
Robert Frost [1874-1963]

• Robert Frost was born in San Francisco. He lived most of his life on a farm in the region of New England, on the eastern side of America.
• He went to university at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later Harvard, but never gained a formal degree
• Among his early jobs, he taught school and worked in a mill and as a newspaper reporter. He remained a teacher and lecturer for much of his life.
• His rich grandfather bought him a farm in New Hampshire.
• He wrote a lot of poems about country life and the beauty of landscape in the American state of New England. His poems could be about any place.
• Frost wrote Mending Wall while he was living in England just before World War One. He used the poem to remind himself of his home in America.
• He wrote the poem in such a way that it could either be about his relationship with his neighbour or about relationships with any one anywhere.
• He liked to use language as it is actually spoken. The many simple lines in the poem show this.
• He is a poet of deep thoughts. Behind his descriptions you can find spiritual meaning.
• Mending Wall shows Frost's ability to unite rural description with deep thinking.

General Introduction
This forty-five-line poem consists of one verse paragraph. It does not have stanzas. It is one whole block of text, like a ‘wall’ of words.
The use of ‘I’ makes it more like a monologue, a one-person dramatic speech.
The poem is a story with a narrator.
It is also in the present tense, which helps to emphasise the idea that it is actually happening while the reader reads the poem.
There are many uses of full stops in the middle of lines:
‘He said it for himself. I see him there’.
It creates a pause in the middle of the line. Pauses are quite common in everyday speaking. Pauses give the poem a natural feel.
There are the uses of contractions or short forms such as ‘doesn't’ which are common in everyday speech.
The use of a word like ‘oh’ is like a filler from everyday speech. Such words also express immediate emotions.

The poem is set in the countryside in spring.
Frost describes the border between two farms. While writing about a physical wall, Frost also describes the character of his neighbour.
Frost compares his neighbour to himself.
Frost also ponders or considers what makes good neighbours.

On one level, Mending Wall describes a country scene where a wall needs to be repaired.
Mending Wall also describes a farmer’s pride in the wisdom passed down to him by his father.
Mending Wall also explores stubbornness in a conservative farmer who blindly follows tradition.
On a deeper level, Mending Wall examines how humans deal with each other and live isolated lives.

Detailed Summary
In the first sentence of four lines, Frost mentions a force that makes gaps in farm walls. He thinks there is an invisible and mysterious being or force that knocks parts of walls down:
‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall’.
One phrase the poet uses suggests that this force is nature. He thinks the destructive force is frost in the ground:
‘ the frozen-ground-swell’.
 From line five to line nine, Frost states that he is not referring to the damage done by rabbit hunters:
‘The work of hunters is another thing’.
Frost refers in a dramatic way to the yelping dogs waiting to catch a rabbit when hunters remove the stones from the wall. Frost has repaired this type of vandalism on his own without his neighbour.

In the sentence that begins on line nine, Frost states he is concerned with a different cause of breaks in the wall. He creates sinister mystery with this line:
‘The gaps I mean, no one has seen them made or heard them made’.
Perhaps, Frost means that after winter there are many breaks in the wall, caused by nature. Winter frost has knocked many stones from the wall. He co-operates with his neighbour in fixing these.

In line eleven, Frost states that he arranges with his neighbour to repair the wall with him:
‘I let my neighbour know beyond the hill’.
This line announces the entry of the main interesting character in the poem. The poet’s story becomes more dramatic. The line may also mean that Frost looked forward to meeting his neighbour. He wanted to break his isolation. He shows little concern for the wall in the poem.
In line fifteen, Frost surprises us by showing that he and his neighbour remain separate. The manner in which the two of them restore the wall shows their isolation. Their aloofness or reserved behaviour is based on the neighbour’s formality. Perhaps it is not based on dislike but on custom:
‘We keep the wall between us as we go’.

In the next five lines, Frost describes the hard work of balancing the stones. He and his neighbour must be skilful in their work. Frost playfully suggests they use a magic spell to balance the stones in the wall. He imagines he has to shout an order to the stones to keep their position. He also compares the stones to loaves of bread or balls. Their shapes make it difficult to position them on the wall. Frost states that the work is hard on the fingers.
Up to line twenty, Frost makes an effort to see his neighbour’s solemn point of view about the wall. From line twenty-one, Frost shows he is fed up of playing along with his selfish and isolated neighbour.

Suddenly, in line twenty-one, Frost explains that repairing the wall is not necessary:
‘Oh, just another kind of outdoor game’.
Mending the wall is a one-a-side game the neighbours play. Their meeting at the wall to repair it in near silence is a formal ceremony or game.
There are no animals to keep in or out:
‘He is all pine and I am apple orchard’.
Both farmers have trees on their common boundary. Frost makes a joke that his apple trees will not eat the cones under his neighbour’s pine trees. Frost can no longer take building the wall seriously. He wants to talk instead.

In line twenty-seven, Frost’s neighbour replies briefly to this humorous argument:
‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
This is the main line of the poem and is repeated at the end of the poem.
The neighbour is stating that there is a moral principle behind mending the walls.
There seems to be a contradiction within this principle. The neighbour believes that separation is the best means for the neighbours can get on. It’s like saying they should keep their distance, so they can be good neighbours. This type of relationship is based on respect rather than friendship.

In line twenty-eight Frost admits that the season of spring makes him roguish or impish and he starts a debate with his neighbour:
‘Spring is the mischief in me’.
In this sense, Frost is more in tune with nature than his stolid or slow-witted neighbour. The neighbour’s mood is not lightened by spring, unlike Frost.

In the next eight lines, Frost argues with his neighbour that since they don’t have cows, they don’t need the wall. Frost also declares that walls make him suspicious:
I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out’.
He then suggests to his neighbour that they might upset something by building up the wall again. A force keeps knocking down wall every year they rebuild it:
‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down’.
Unlike his neighbour, Frost is sensitive to the effects of a wall. He is also trying without success to wind his neighbour up.
Frost is tempted to make little of his neighbour by saying they must have offended the elves. In any case, Frost really wanted to hear his neighbours views.
‘I'd rather he said it for himself’.

Frost is both impressed and amused by the way his neighbour continues working. He hasn’t much to say for himself:
‘I see him there, bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed’.
In his own mind, Frost thinks his neighbour is like an uneducated savage. He mocks his neighbour and imagines him to be a stone-age warrior. There is something hostile in the silence and attitude of the neighbour. Frost dislikes his neighbour’s thick-skinned personality:
‘He moves in darkness as it seems to me’.
 His neighbour shows strength and concentration, but lacks affability or cheerfulness. He is dour. In line forty-two, Frost realises that his neighbour is influenced by tradition. He lives in the shadow of the past:
‘He will not go behind his father's saying’.
This farmer is not open to Frost’s views.
The quiet-spoken neighbour doesn’t get involved in the attempt to get an argument going. After all, while Frost is a poet who expresses himself in language, this man is a farmer who expresses himself through physical work. Thus, Frost’s neighbour only repeats the saying or proverb of his father:
‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Frost is in a playful mood and suggests that the farmer repeats the proverb because he liked the sound of it so much:
‘He likes having thought of it so well’.
Here Frost treats his neighbour like a child. Frost is amused by the simplicity of his neighbour. His neighbour has very little to say for himself.
Yet, there is wisdom in the proverb. It means that country people need their own space. Respectful distance between neighbours is the recipe for harmonious relationships.
In one way, it would seem that the farmer is fortunate to have the wall between himself and his mocking neighbour.

Themes

The theme of this poem is that a respectful distance between neighbours is the recipe for harmonious relationships:
‘Good fences make good neighbors’.

The theme of this poem is a farmer’s pride in the wisdom passed down to him by his father:
‘He will not go behind his father's saying’.
 
The poet portrays an unusual and dour country character:
‘like an old-stone savage armed he moves in darkness’.

The theme of this poem is co-operation between neighbours:
‘I let my neighbour know beyond the hill’.

The theme of this poem is that country people need their own space:
‘We keep the wall between us as we go’.

The poet explores the futility of a country custom:
‘Oh, just another kind of outdoor game’.

The poet suggests there are mysterious forces at work in nature:
‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down’.

The poet shows the different types of agriculture in his locality:
‘He is all pine and I am apple orchard’.

The theme is the way some people keep to themselves, no matter what:
‘He moves in darkness as it seems to me’.

The theme is the mental struggle between two neighbours who appear to co-operate on a physical task while they are very different in outlook:
‘There were it is we do not need the wall’.

The tone at the start is sinister and mysterious:
‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall’.

Then the tone becomes eerie and ghostly:
‘frozen-ground-swell’.

Frost creates a sinister and mysterious tone with this line:
‘The gaps I mean, no one has seen them made or heard them made’

Sometimes the tone is irritated or cross:
‘But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs’.

Sometimes the tone is calm and co-operative:
‘we meet to walk the line 
and set the wall between us once again’.

Sometimes the tone is confident and certain:
‘To each the boulders that have fallen to each’.
On re-reading this line, you will probably agree that it is sarcastic.

Sometimes the tone is humorous or playful [impish]:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

Sometimes the tone is impatient or weary:
‘Oh, just another kind of outdoor game’.

Sometimes the tone is sarcastic or mischievous:
‘My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines’.

Sometimes the tone is disappointed or frustrated:
‘He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors.’

Sometimes the tone is argumentative:
‘Why do they make good neighbors?’

Sometimes the tone is cheeky:
‘Isn't it where there are cows? But here there are no cows’.

Sometimes the tone is considerate:
‘I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.’

Sometimes the tone is the tone is weary and condescending:
‘I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself’.

Sometimes the tone is contemptuous or sneering:
‘like an old-stone savage armed’.

Sometimes the tone is disapproving:
‘He will not go behind his father's saying’.

Sometimes the tone is sarcastic:
‘And he likes having thought of it so well’.

Many of these examples show the basic tension in the poem.
The mocking or sarcastic tones can be called ironic.

The central image is of the poet beside a ‘wall’, rebuilding it, while his neighbour does the same at the other side of the ‘wall’.

The ‘wall’ is a physical image.
The ‘wall’ is also a metaphor, a comparison image.
If you wish to, you can refer to this comparison as an analogy.
An analogy is a parallel image.
The comparison or analogy of the wall is an image for human separation and isolation:
‘There were it is we do not need the wall’.
The ‘something there is that doesn't love a wall’ is also the poet. Frost is a ‘something’ that dislikes the wall. The poet expresses himself cleverly because this opening sentence also creates mystery about the cause of the fallen stones.
 The poet compares the barrier between himself and his neighbour to the ‘wall’. The ‘wall’ represents the mental barrier between two different approaches to life. Thus there is a deeper, moral, level to the poem than just putting stones back in the wall.

There are various factual images in the poem.
There are images of the season, of nature and of mending a wall

Four images show the that the setting of the poem is the springtime:
‘frozen-ground-swell’
‘in the sun …’
‘spring mending-time…’
‘spring is the mischief in me…’

There are nine images of nature:
‘ the frozen-ground-swell …’
‘ the rabbit…’
‘yelping dogs…’
‘ pine …’
‘apple orchard…’
‘ apple trees…’
‘cones under his pines…’
‘cows…’
 ‘woods only and the shade of trees...’

There are  seventeen images of the wall or fence Frost and his neighbour are mending:
‘a wall…’
‘the upper boulders…’
‘gaps even two can pass abreast…’
‘not one stone on a stone…’
‘the gaps …’
 ‘walk the line…’
‘and set the wall between us once again…’
‘we keep the wall between us as we go…’
‘ boulders that have fallen …’
‘ make them balance…’
‘we wear our fingers rough with handling them…’
‘we do not need the wall…’
‘good fences make good neighbors…’
‘before I built a wall I'd ask to know
what I was walling in or walling out…’
‘a wall…’
 ‘a stone …’
‘Good fences make good neighbors…’

There are seven images of magic or superstition. The poet really believes there is a rational explanation for everything. He mocks the way country people believe in supernatural influences:
‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
and spills the upper boulder in the sun…’
‘ The gaps I mean, no one has seen them made or heard them made…’
‘We have to use a spell to make them balance…’
‘My apple trees will never get across
and eat the cones under his pines…’
‘ I could say "Elves" to him, but it's not elves exactly…’
‘ like an old-stone savage armed…’
‘he moves in darkness as it seems to me…’

There are images where the language is like the language of the bible. The first of these images is a clear biblical allusion or a version of a quote from the bible:
‘they have left not one stone on a stone…’
‘To each the boulders that have fallen to each…’
‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Frost also uses a simile.
A simile is a comparison that uses ‘like’ or ‘as’.
‘like an old-stone savage armed’.
Here Frost compares his stubborn neighbour to an uncivilised stone-age man.

There are metaphors, comparison images that don’t use ‘like’ or ‘as’:

‘And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance’.
Here Frost compares the shapes of the boulders or stones to the shapes of baked bread and to footballs. He also compares the difficulty of balancing the stones on each other to witchcraft or spells.

‘He moves in darkness’.
This ‘darkness’ does not refer to lack of sunlight. The word is a metaphor for memory, tradition, the unchanging past, habit and an outlook that lacks imagination or sensitivity.
 
The poet also uses an image of personification when he commands the stones in the wall:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
It also seems he would be quite happy if the wall began to fall apart again.

Alliteration
[Alliteration is the repetition of first letters.]
Note the three ‘w’ sounds in this quote:
‘What I was walling in or walling out’.
This sound helps to emphasise the ‘wall’.

Assonance
[Assonance is repetition of vowels.]
Note six various  ‘a’ vowels in this line. In particular note the five ‘a’ vowels that sound like the ‘a’ of ‘gaps’:
‘And make gaps even two can pass abreast’.
This assonance emphasises the gaps in the ‘wall’.

Consonance
[Consonance is repetition of consonant sounds.]
Note the fifty-three ‘l’ and  ‘ll’ sounds in the poem.
This repetition emphasises the wall. Consonance is also a musical effect.
Find more yourself.

Sibilance
[Sibilance is repetition of ‘s’ sounds. It is consonance involving ‘s’.].
Note the thirteen ‘s’ sounds in the first four lines. In particular, note the four ‘s’ sounds in this quote:
‘That sends the frozen-ground-swell’.
This sibilance emphasises the spreading of frost in the cold or frozen ground. It creates a musical effect.

Rhyming
There isn’t a regular rhyming scheme.

Internal Rhyme
[Internal Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming within a line]
Note how the word ‘stone’ occurs twice in this line:
‘they have left not one stone on a stone’.

Note the repetition of ‘made’ in this line:
‘No one has seen them made or heard them made.
Find one of the many more.

Cross Rhyme [a word or sound rhyming across two or more lines]
Note the word ‘between’ repeated in this quote:
‘And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go’.

Rhythm
Rhythm is a complex aspect of Frost’s poetry. Mostly, writers of student notes make a brief reference to rhythm and leave it at that. But in a Frost poem, rhythm needs to be explained in detail.
Frost used rhythm to create meaning.
You’ve got to use your ear to judge the rhythm. So, read the poem aloud.
Frost had a complex attitude to rhythm. He claimed that he wanted to represent the rhythm of ordinary speech in his poems.
But he was also a conservative. That means that he tried to write poetry according to the rules of the great poets he had read.

In the past, most poets used the rhythm known as iambic pentameter.
Now that’s a mouthful for any student.
What it means is that the beat of each line is based on a unit of sound known as an iambic foot. The iambic foot has two syllables. The second syllable of the pair is the loudest. In other words, it is a stressed syllable. A line of poetry with five of these iambic feet is known as iambic pentameter. ‘Penta’ comes from the Greek word  for five.
In traditional poetry, the most popular type of line had ten syllables. Usually such lines were divided into five pair of syllables for the purpose of beat or rhythm. This is the beat that Frost admired and tried to use in his poetry. You can see iambic pentameter in many of Frost’s lines.

In ‘Mending Wall’ there is a regular rhythm created by the five beats per line. Take the opening line as an example of this rhythm or tempo:
‘Something…there is...that does…n't love… a wall’.
[Two syllables… Two syllables… Two syllables… Two syllables… Two syllables…]
This is the most common tempo or rhythm in poetry down through the ages. In this quoted line, there are two syllables per beat. The second syllable of each beat is loud or stressed. This type of rhythm is known as iambic pentameter, but you don’t have to worry about this technical term.
In his early poetry, Frost kept to traditional rules of rhythm.
In his later poetry, he relied more on the rhythm of the voice in normal speech when writing his poetry.
Did traditional metre or rhythm decide the basic rhythm of ‘Mending Wall’?
Trust your ear to judge the rhythm.
As long as you can quote a typical line and show the rhythm that you hear in the line, you are as good a judge as any.

So, you should read or listen again to ‘Mending Wall’.

Yes, you can detect another type of rhythm? Fine. Go for it.

The same line that was analysed just above can be read as a four beat line:
‘Something…there is...that doesn't love… a wall’.
[Two syllables…two syllables…four syllables…two syllables]
In this reading of the poem, the last syllable of each unit or group is the stressed syllable.
This way of reading the line is based on the human voice and ear as it deals with both the sound and meaning of the words. In fact, the human voice increasingly replaces formal poetic meter in Frost’s mature poetry.
You can find just the same pattern in reading to and listening to the rest of ‘Mending Wall’.
Consider line sixteen:
‘To each…the boulders…that have fallen… to each…’
[Two syllables…three syllables…four syllables…two syllables]

In fact, while your eye may see the five beat rhythm, your ear is more likely to lead you to the four beat rhythm, especially if you read for meaning. You may also reach this conclusion just by sounding the poem out in your head. Try it.

Confused by the choice of rhythm offered here?
Don’t worry. If you want to discuss rhythm in detail, this note gives you an illustration of the tension between a natural speech rhythm and a formal rhythm in the same line. You can find this tension in most lines of ‘Mending Wall’. This tension emphasises or mirrors the tension Frost feels between his free-thinking self and his stubborn, formal neighbour.

You may choose to take sides on the rhythm issue. All you need to do then is to look at a couple of other lines and show how you can read them as either a five beat or a four beat line.

When discussing rhythm, you can state that most lines have the same beat. The other sound effects like alliteration etc. help to maintain this regular rhythm. Rhythm and sound effects give ‘Mending Wall’ musical harmony. The run on lines and everyday phrases help to make the poem sound very natural to the ear. The lack of rhyming adds to this natural, everyday effect.
If the lines rhymed regularly, the poem would sound a lot more formal. Thus, Frost manages to make the poem sound informal. This point applies especially if you opt for the natural four beat rhythm of the speaking voice.

Many of the lines run smoothly, without pause or punctuation. This makes the poem seem fluent. Such fluent lines complement or add to meaning. The lines with pauses or punctuation breaks, caesuras, are mainly the lines where Frost is expressing his tension with his neighbour’s attitude. Full stops, commas and colons in the middle of a line create a pause, known as a caesura, in the middle of the line. These pauses slow the rhythm to show feelings of tension, irritation or danger.
This happens between lines thirty and thirty-one and between lines thirty-six and lines forty:
‘That wants it down. I could say Elves to him,’
The broken rhythm in these lines reveals Frosts irritation with his stubborn neighbour.
Rhythm supports meaning. Always link rhythm to meaning when you chose to bring up the subject of rhythm.