Mending Wall
Mending Wall :
Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco on 26th March 1874. His mother was a poetess and she named her son after great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Robert Frost lost his father when he was only eleven. His mother took up a teaching job to support her family. At the age of 18, Frost started Newspaper reporting and writing poetiy. He made the crucial decision of his life in 1912 by choosing poetry as his vocation. He was honoured with the membership of the American Academy and the award of the Pulitzer Prize. MENDING WALL is a dramatic monologue. It is one of the most appreciated poems of Robert Frost. In this poem he expressed his views and attitude towards the wall separating his plot from his neighbour’s. The poet sees no use in having this wall but his neighbour is a traditionalist. He is in favour of the wall. He believes that Good fences make good neighbours.
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 neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day wc 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:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And cat 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
Why 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 neighbours."
Robert Frost
The word POETRY originates from a Greek word meaning TO MAKE. A poet is thus a maker and the poem something that is made or created. No single definition of poetry is possible but some characteristic features of poetry may be mentioned. Poetry has a musical quality with rhythm, pitch, metre and it may use figures of speech such as simile and metaphor. While quite a few poems in this selection are in traditional forms, the unit also includes modern poems that are free from formal restrictions.
Here is a list of English Poems written by various authors. Whatever the question is, poetry may be the answer. Writers say poetry provides them with comfort, a way to express themselves and the discipline of finding the essence with few words. Writing the poem (and finding just the right word) is the measure of success that the authors use. Really good poetry is instinctive. It’s who you are. It’s from the heart. You need to expose yourself to all kinds of poets and you may find your motivation and muse that way. Poetry gets to the core meaning. Poetry expands ideas.
