hat sends a determinedand purposeful ground-swell. It is ironic that the speaker who ponders these questions, suspicious of the need, actually initiates the annual ritual of mending the wall. Perhaps he reveals an impish motive when he tells us, “Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, / One on a side. It comes to little more,” and, “Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder / If I could put a notion in his head: . . . ” No doubt there is a certain element of play and not just a little curiosity in the annual piquing of “an old-stone savage,” as is the timeless wont of a poet to blind and mindless conformity. But while there appears to be little appreciation and some scorn, (literally and symbolically), for the neighbor’s seemingly unenlightened, “moving in darkness” with all who find security in their walls, there is a novel bond in their differences. Two farmers, two men in stark contrast whose natures and perceptions are so vastly different, if not opposed. One would question whether they ever exchanged any more than a passing wave throughout the year: year after year. Yet the wall that divides them brings them together at least on that one day annually to reacquaint and perhaps to further know and understand. The wall that defines their possessions grants the opportunity to overcome their walls of indifference and their difference. And therein lies a true irony. The neighbor’s worn clich is born out in a very unique sense; “Good fences make good neighbors.” ...
