MENDING WALL - Robert Frost

Heights of Harmony

Fraternity and tolerance are the twin virtues of harmonious living. But, do we cherish these qualities in our daily life? What should be our attitude to our neighbours? Need we accept their ideas as well in order to maintain good relationship with them?

Mending Wall - Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends a frozen-ground-swell under it

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,...can pass abreast.

There is a power that dislikes walls. In the warmth of the sun, it causes the frozen ground beneath a wall to expand, causing the higher stones to fall off.

The falling stones creates gaps in the wall. It becomes so big that two people could easily walk through them side-by-side.

 

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they would 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.

The hunters who destroy walls are something entirely/completely different. In order to calm their barking dogs, hunters frequently/often try to flush out rabbits that hide in the wall, so I have to come and repair/mend the areas where they have not left a single stone in order. 

No one has seen/noticed or heard these gaps in the wall being made. When it comes time to fix/repair the wall in the spring, we only discover/find them there.

I let my neighbour 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.

I get in touch with my neighbour who lives over a hill, and we arrange a time to meet and walk along the wall, filling in these gaps along the way. We only deal with the stones that have fallen from the wall on our side of it; he walks on his side of the wall and I on mine. 

 

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!"

Some of them resemble/look like loaves of bread and others are spherical/round like balls. So we pray that they will remain in position, balanced on top of the wall, saying, "Don't move until we're gone!" 

 

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:

When we pick up the rocks/stones, our fingertips get chafed/scraped. We're all on our sides of the wall, and it's just another outdoor activity.

The presence of a wall is not necessary.

 

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 neighbours."

There is an apple orchard on my side of the wall and nothing but pine trees on my neighbours'. I tell him, “It's not like my apple trees are going to cross the wall and eat his pine cones."

In response, he simply says, “Good fences are necessary to have good neighbours."

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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
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Since it is spring and I’m feeling naughty, I wonder if I can convince my neighbour to ask himself:

“Why are they necessary? Isn't that only the case when you're attempting to keep your neighbour's cows out of your fields? This place is free of 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.

If I were building a wall, I would like to know what I was keeping out and what I was allowing in, besides who would get offended.

 

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.

There is something powerful that wants to break down walls instead of loving it. I could say that Fairies are the reason for the wall's gaps, but it might not be true and I prefer to have my neighbour solve the problem on his own.

Like an ancient warrior, I see him picking up stones and holding them firmly by the top with each hand. 

 

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.'

He goes in deep darkness that goes beyond the shadows of the trees and into the woods.

He enjoys having expressed his perspective in such a simple and straightforward way, and he does not wish to think beyond that.

So he says it again: “Good fences are necessary to have good neighbours.”

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