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Refrain

The term refrain refers to any word, phrase, or line that gets repeated over the course of a poem. Frost uses this technique to especially sophisticated effect in “Mending Wall,” which features two distinct refrains. Each of these refrains are proverbial expressions of a sort, and they each get repeated twice to convey the opposing viewpoints of the speaker and his neighbor. The speaker’s expression occurs in lines 1 and 35: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” These words are the speaker’s own invention, so they aren’t technically proverbial. However, its proverbial quality becomes clearer when compared to the neighbor’s expression, which the speaker quotes in lines 27 and 45: “Good fences make good neighbors.” It’s notable that the speaker never actually pronounces his expression out loud, preferring to keep his ideas to himself. By contrast, the neighbor speaks his expression aloud twice, which helps to underscore how hackneyed the idea is. Frost also suggests the weakness of the neighbor’s expression on a metrical level, since the phrase both begins and ends on an unstressed syllable: “Good fen- / ces make / good neigh / bors.” The speaker’s expression, however, has an undeniable strength, beginning and ending as it does with a stressed beat: “Some-thing / there is / that does- / n’t love / a wall.”

Sibilance

Sibilance is related to the phenomenon of consonance. Whereas consonance refers generally to the repetition of consonant sounds, sibilance refers specifically to the repetition of S sounds. As with the other poetic devices he uses in “Mending Wall,” Frost deploys sibilance in subtle and sophisticated ways. Put simply, sibilance shows up most prominently in the poem when the speaker is at his most consciously, self-righteous state. As an example, consider the opening lines where the speaker first announces his skepticism about the efficacy of walls (lines 1–4):

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.

Note the predominance of sibilance across these four lines, where S sounds frequently appear at the beginning and ending of words. Note, too, how the intensity of the sibilance is linked to the speaker’s more self-consciously “poetic” turns of phrase, such as “makes gaps even two can pass abreast.” This use of sibilance largely diminishes in the middle section of the poem, as the speaker enters a more colloquial mode of speaking. However, it returns in a significant way near the poem’s end, as the speaker passes judgment on his neighbor and, in contrast, assumes an implicit position of superiority (lines 36–42):

   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.

Note how the prevalence of sibilance grows denser as this passage continues. Once again, the effect peaks where the speaker is most poetic and hence self-important: “like an old-stone savage armed. / He moves in darkness as it seems to me.”

Simile

A simile (SIH-muh-lee) is a figure of speech that explicitly compares two unlike things to each other. Frost uses just one simile in “Mending Wall,” but the effect is significant. The simile appears near the end of the poem, after the speaker has considered—and then discarded—the idea of expressing his doubts about the usefulness of the wall to his neighbor. Rather than announcing his view aloud, the speaker says he’d rather let his neighbor come to the same conclusion on his own. Yet immediately after articulating this preference, the speaker reassesses his neighbor in a disparaging light (lines 38–42):

                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.

Explicitly comparing his neighbor to a Stone Age man who, in his savagery, arms himself with rocks, the speaker indulges in a moment of judgment. The effect of this judgment is to give the speaker a sense of superiority. If his neighbor is an intellectually-backward man who “moves in darkness,” then the speaker can consider himself a forward thinker who boasts with an enlightened perspective. Of course, it’s up to the reader to decide whether the speaker is really as enlightened as he seems to believe.

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