Mending Wall 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 neighbor know Beyond the hill; and on a day we meet To walk the line and set the wall between us.

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: Just another kind of out-door game, But not every man is at home to it.

Before I built— I had an even wall And I think that I see within.

• Robert Frost