Neely

=**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 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 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 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 eat 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 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."
 * Mending Wall**

====---In actuallity this poem may be a representaion of Robert Frost's life, in multiple biographys of Frost authors talk about how he was a secluded person. The wall may be a metaphor for how Robert Frost put walls up around himself internally to prevent from being hurt again because he lost a lot of close family in his lifetime. He seems to not want the wall in the poem but everytime he has a chance to have a relationship (represented by spring- a sign of rebirth) he still puts the wall up regardless. The neighbor may be who Robert Frost feared to become, a man stuck in tradition and therefore refuses to not fix the wall. He wants to keep the world out but his feelings in. He is keeping all of the pain hid behind a fence and not letting anyone or anything in. He is secluded because of this. He also literally could just want a fence between the neighbor's pine trees and his apple orchard because he didn't want the pine cones in his orchard. Although I highly doubt this because of Frost and his typical writing style. Also another way of looking at it is that this is Frost's attempt to write on segregation. I believe by him talking about this fence that seperates him from his neighbor shows how people at this time were segregating themselves from their neighbors. By him wanting his apple orchard to be untouched from the pine trees could be him saying that people are different and want to be seperated because of their differences.====

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. And nothing happened: day was all but done. Call it a day, I wish they might have said To please the boy by giving him the half hour That a boy counts so much when saved from work. His sister stood beside them in her apronTo tell them "Supper." At that word, the saw, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -- He must have given the hand. However it was, Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh, As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -- Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -- He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -- The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already. The doctor put him in the dark of ether. He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. And then - the watcher at his pulse took fright. No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little -- less -- nothing! -- and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
 * Out, Out---**

====---This is poem is about a boy playing with a saw and his sister calls for him but he asks for more time to play with the saw. She gives him thirty more minutes and within that thirty minutes the saw "jumps out of his hands" and his hand gets cut off. The doctor is unable to recover the hand and then the boy dies. The family didn't even care that the boy died and they returned to their normal affairs. I think that this poem also has a deeper meaning. It brings out points about life and death, and how unpredictable death can be. At the beginning of the poem, all is going well. And it seems as though it is a normal day “And nothing happened: day was all but done”. But when his sister tells him it’s time for supper, he gets excited, and is careless, and cuts off his hand. The poet states that by one simple call “Call it a day” death could have been avoided. Had the boy decided that was enough, shut the saw off and went on, he never would have cut his hand. This stresses how unpredictable death can be. Death can take away a boy’s life just as easily as it can take away an older person’s life; “Since he was old enough to know, big boy doing a man's work”. This poem also says that without the ability to work or contribute, all is lost, and he is worthless. “Then the boy saw all—He saw all spoiled”. When the boy sees that he has cut his hand, he sees that he will no longer be able to work or contribute, so he really has no value to society. He plea’s to his sister not to let the doctor take his hand, but he had already lost it. This point is also emphasized with the line “No more to build on there”. It is saying that once the boy is dead, you can’t get anything else out of him. You can’t “build” him into something; that would contribute to society, and work. It also talks about how life goes on, and death is not the end of all things. The last line and a half of the poem; “And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs” shows that even though the boy dies, everything else in life continues on. When the boy died, the things going on in everyone else’s lives still continued on. The doctor would still have other patients to attend to; the family would still have to maintain themselves; cooking meals, cutting wood, ect. Life goes on. The poet uses a lot of personification in this poem, usually referring to the saw. “The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard” and “At the word, the saw, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leaped out at the boy's hand”. This gives the saw a vicious and mean personality. The poet also uses a metaphor relating blood to life; “ Half in appeal, but half as if to keep the life from spilling”. After the boy cut his hand, he would be bleeding and due to him cutting his hand he will now lose his “life”, because without your hands, and your ability to contribute, you are nothing.====

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
 * Fire and Ice**

====---I believe that Robert Frost is talking about emotions in general. He is relating desire with fire and hate with ice which ties to the theories that if the world were to end it would either freeze over or go up in flames. Indicating that ones own world could come to an end if they let their desires take control of their life. Fire is hot and impulsive and uncontrollable and dangerous, implying desire is the same. What people desire is can often be selfish and hurt others. If someone were to act strictly on desire it would be "heat of the moment". Then when he adds hatred he is implying hatred is equally powerful although the complete opposite of fire. If someone were to let their hatred towards someone or something control them the outcome would be the same. While ice is cold, smooth, and equally dangerous, implying hatred is the same way. When someone has hatred towards something they are cold towards it. Robert Frost was a very intelligent man and this poem is a work of art. I applaude him for it and believe it was one of his best.====

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it--it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. And lonely as it is that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less-- A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars--on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.
 * Desert Places**

====---What I understand from this poem is that the persona is one who admires nature as Frost does. He has looked into the field with the time moving. His whole life is correlated with time. The grounds almost covered in snow but a few weeds....show last is telling us that the persona feels almost entrapped by his own desert places, by his own loneliness but there is hope for him in the future. Snow is metaphorically used to represent death as it prevents nature from being exposed. It covers the greenness. It is seen as an element of destruction and so useful. Frost uses it to represent man's loneliness and isolation."The woods have it - it is their". "All animals are smothered in their lairs" is saying that the woods have something which belongs to it,the animals are protected in the home- the young by their mothers, (smothered)protected because it is the winter season and in their lairs meaning in their home.The persona states this to emphasise his own loneliness and to not care about the animal so much as to him loneliness is felt by man and worries about this. The animals have nothing to worry about. The loneliness he feels is so much that he feels dead and emotion-less,"too absent-spirited to count" He can't think right now because he is so caught up with his own self, too caught up in his loneliness and isolation,too caught up with his own desert places. The persona then goes by saying that it will get worse. There will be more loneliness. The last stanza is trying to say that he knows that the physical world out there cannot scare him, cannot fool him. What he feels within him(the loneliness)is more worse than the loneliness one feels in the external world. "I have it in me so much nearer home" meaning that he has what it is to scare him right here with him (his own desert places). His own isolation is right within him and is a lot worse than physical isolation in the world out there. The title desert places is appropriate for the lyric poem. A desert is a place of dirt,no water no fruitfulness just emptiness. A place of no life. Frost found it suitable to represent death and isolation and that isolation doesn't have to mean alienated from the world. It doesn't mean one place or a physical place. It can be the place with one's self. It was suitable to represent death because the desert lack trees and water which human need to survive and the persona was lacking something which caused him to be covered in loneliness.====

**Design**
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

====---Robert Frost was a very secluded man with a lot of sorrow and sadness. He had lost a son to suicide and had outlived his entire family except his daughter who was mentally ill. With this being said he wrote this poem to challenge design and it's evilness. He sees this horrific scene of a white moth being eaten by a spider on a white flower. All of the white represents purity and the goodness in the world whereas the spider represents the evil. He watches this spider devour this innocent and beautiful moth while on a beautiful flower. The spider itself is also white. This could represent evil in disguse. He goes on to question whether there is a design to everything in the world and if so does the design even include things as small as a spider eating a moth. I believe by him stating this he is questioning whether or not god really governs anything at all. I believe he is saying that God creates us and places us where we are and then leaves the rest up to chance, luck, and our own making. I believe he is so upset over the death of his son and the rest of his family that he is claiming that God couldn't design for something like that to happen.====

=Works Cited= Frost, Robert. “Out—Out.” //The Norton Anthology American Literature Volume II//. Eds. Nina Baym, Wayne Franklin, Philip F. Gura, Arnold Krupat, Jerome Klinkowitz, Robert S. Levine, Patricia B. Wallace, Mary Loeffelholz, Jeanne Campbell Reesman. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. 775-786. Print. +