Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen groundswell 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 are full 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 outdoor 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.
